Multicolour Post Its
by Wingwyrm
Summary: Harry Potter's animagus form is the Kyuubi no Yōko. And now he's stuck in a little boy named Naruto. So he helps the kid out. And boy is the kid hyperactive. Gen, WIP, AU.
1. Chapter 1

**Title**: Kyuubi Potter**  
Disclaimer**: I don't own Naruto, Masashi Kishimoto does. I also don't own Harry Potter, JKR does.**  
Warnings**: None so far :D**  
A/N**: I know, another new fic. I just can't help myself. I haven't stopped writing FoFtA, or Tensai or Sharingan, but this came to me so I wrote it :) Hope you guys like it!**  
Summary**: Harry Potter's animagus form is the Kyuubi no Yōko. And now he's stuck in a little boy named Naruto. So he helps the kid out.

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Uzumaki Naruto was two the first time he heard a voice in his head telling him to pretend to be asleep. He was in the hospital and there was a nurse standing over him, watching with dark eyes, pillow in hand. The voice told him to stay still, to not open his eyes, to keep breathing slowly.

Eventually the nurse put the pillow down and left, but Naruto hardly noticed as he was far too engaged in his curiosity about the voice that he'd listened to.

The voice didn't tell him anything else though, and he didn't hear it again until he was four.

When Naruto was four, he became angry at the people that ignored him, that threw rotting fruit at him, that mocked him and hated him. The voice came back only moments before Naruto was about to shout out that he would become Hokage and then they would have to like him, have to acknowledge him.

The voice insisted that Naruto just leave, go back to his lonely apartment by himself. Naruto, knowing that the voice was right once before - because the nurse would certainly have tried to smother him with the pillow had he moved that time in the hospital when he was two - Naruto did what he was told.

In his apartment, Naruto talked to the voice and the voice talked back. They had a lot of conversations in the following weeks and Naruto learned that the voice had a name. It was named Hari. Why it wanted to be called 'fishhook' Naruto didn't know, but since he didn't want Hari to leave him, he called him that.

Hari was old. He said that he remembered long before the time of the Elemental Countries, a time before shinobi jutsu, a time when men walked in space and machines were used for everything. Naruto had no idea what he meant, but figured that Hari was probably older that Ojii-chan. Hari just laughed at him and said that he was old long before 'Ojii-chan' was born. Naruto wasn't sure that was possible, but Hari hadn't been wrong before, so Naruto trusted his word.

By the time Naruto's fifth birthday came around, Hari and Naruto had become good friends. Hari had even started to teach Naruto some simple tricks about chakra. Naruto had taken to using chakra like a duck to water and Hari was always so very proud when Naruto managed to do whatever the exercise was. It was on Naruto's fifth birthday when Hari taught Naruto how to walk up trees. A week later Naruto was walking on water and a week after that Naruto could walk across a field of long grass without ever touching the ground or bending a single blade of grass.

Naruto was usually very careful when out walking on the tall grass around the two or three sparsely trafficked training areas. Considering that Karma was working overtime for Naruto, even though he'd managed to be caught on the training grounds, he'd never been caught doing the chakra exercises. At least, up until half way through his fifth year of life when a tall man with silver hair and a mask found him balancing on a single blade of grass that was a foot and a half tall.

"Well, hello there," The man's voice was a little breathy and Hari told Naruto that the man was surprised. Naruto didn't know why the man would be shocked, but he trusted everything Hari said.

"Hi!" Naruto waved manically at the shinobi - Hari didn't have to tell him that the man was a ninja, it was all over the way he moved - and didn't even waver on the blade of grass.

"What are you doing?" The man asked and Naruto thought that he sounded a little strange, but shrugged it off.

"Chakra exercises! I can tree-walk and water-walk and now Hari-chan said to do this!"

The man idly folded his body up underneath himself and sat in a cross-legged position, still staring at him. He reached up and nudged his hitai-ite up off his covered eye and Naruto became enthralled with the red eye with three tadpoles swimming around his pupil.

"You have tadpoles in your eye!" Naruto laughed and the man coughed abruptly.

"They're actually called tomoe," He corrected Naruto and Naruto shrugged. What did he care what they were called? They looked like tadpoles, so he was gonna call them tadpoles.

"Whatev's," Naruto bit his lip and then twisted his shoulders to the right, raised out his arms and then drew them in as quickly as possible, throwing his twisted shoulders in the opposite direction, forcing his body into a spin.

He laughed loudly as he spun on the blade of grass like a toy top.

The man continued to watch him and Naruto finally got tired of spinning on his foot so he concentrated firmly and with a jump into the air, twisted his body around so that he came down head first, hand out and landed on a single finger on the grass. He frowned and licked his lips.

He mumbled to himself as Hari told him to try something else and the man seemed to perk up.

"Would you like me to get you a leaf?"

Naruto scoffed, like Hari did, "What do I need a leaf for?" He held out his free hand and gathered his chakra into his palm. His hand started glowing and then he yelped and stumbled off the blade of grass, rolling as he hit the ground and came up rubbing his bright red hand.

Hari was laughing at him - and not in a mean way - and telling him that he needed to protect his hand before letting his chakra crawl over his skin.

The man was staring at him even harder than he had been before.

"What was that?"

"Was 'con-duct-ing' chakra through my skin," Naruto spat out the word Hari always used in pieces, but he was fairly sure that he got it right.

"... 'Through' your skin." The man sounded faint and Naruto looked up from where he was rubbing his hand to see that he'd gone almost completely white.

"Who are you, anyway?!" Naruto jumped to his feet and pointed at him rudely. Hari chastised him for his rudeness, but he didn't let that stop him from continuing his pointing.

"Hatake Kakashi," The man, Kakashi, said wearily. Naruto wondered why he sounded tired all of a sudden, so he asked. Kakashi's mask inched up his face and Hari told Naruto that Kakashi was smiling. "Too many missions, so little time," Kakashi answered him.

He wasn't telling the whole truth, but Hari said not to worry about it.

"I'm Uzumaki Naruto! And I'm gonna be a _wicked_ shinobi!"

Kakashi smiled again and cocked his head to the side, "Nice to meet you, Naruto-kun."

Hari urged Naruto to respond in kind, so he did. Grudgingly. "You as well, Kakashi-san." And then Hari metaphysically bopped him on the head for calling Kakashi by his first name. "Sorry. Hatake-san."

"Maa, maa, you can call me Kakashi," Kakashi waved his hand in front of him, "So, ahh, how long have you been doing chakra exercises?"

Naruto sighed, "Six months?" He hummed and hawwed, "Yeah, that's about it." Hari said some rather nasty words in his head when Kakashi rolled his eyes. He reached up then and flipped the hitai-ite back over his tadpolly eye. "... Why have you got the tadpoles?"

"Tomoe," Kakashi tried to correct him and Naruto huffed. "My friend gave me this eye before he died."

Naruto's eyes widened in awe, "Really? Really, really?"

"Really," Kakashi's cheek pushed up and his eye curved up in an upside down smile, "He did."

"That's so _cool_!" Naruto bounced on the ground, "It does special things, right? I mean, he totally wanted to make sure that you okay, right?" Naruto's eyes grew so big that he thought for a moment his eyeballs would pop out of his head and a look of awe came over his face, "Can he still see out of it?" He whispered his question and Kakashi jerked back, startled.

Hari told him that it wasn't a good question to ask. Naruto slumped and bit his lip.

He was about to apologize when Kakashi shook himself all over, kinda like a dog, and took a deep breath. "Sometimes," He paused, "Sometimes I like to think so."

"Oh," Naruto hunched in on himself, "I- I didn't mean to make you sad." He could feel something like sadness, but deeper, from Kakashi and Hari told him that the feeling was sorrow.

"It's okay," Kakashi gave him a different smile, one that he'd never seen before, and rubbed a hand over his bright silver hair, "It's good to remember Obito. He would have wanted to be remembered."

"Well, then I'll remember him too!" Naruto cheered up. Anything he could do to make his new friend happy would be what he did. That's just the way he was. He flopped down on the ground, not minding the dirt, "Can you tell me more about Obito-nii?"

Kakashi laughed then and Hari told Naruto that he was a good kid. Naruto already knew that though, so he just laughed with Kakashi.

As Kakashi told Naruto about his friend Uchiha Obito, Hari constructed a mock up of what Obito would have looked like in Naruto's head. By the time Kakashi was out of words and Naruto was thoroughly in love with Obito's goggles, the sun had started to set and Hari had a perfect image of Obito walking around in Naruto's head.

Naruto looked up at the sunset and sighed dejectedly. He really wanted to stay and keep talking to Kakashi, but he had to get back to the apartment. He told Kakashi that he had to go and Kakashi nodded in understanding. With only a little apprehension, Naruto lunged forward and hugged Kakashi around the waist tightly. Kakashi chuckled and petted his shoulders and ruffled his hair.

They said good bye to each other and before Naruto left the edge of the training ground he turned spun around and waved to Kakashi, "Kakashi-nii-san!"

Kakashi turned to look over his shoulder from the tree he was crouched on, "Hai, Naruto-kun?"

"Can- Will we see each other again?" Naruto played with the hem of his shirt and mentally wrote a post-it note - he'd seen post-it's in Ojii-chan's office and thought they were completely awesome - to re-hem his shirt. It was getting a little ratty.

Kakashi nodded only once and then vanished as Naruto called out his enthusiastic farewell.

Naruto's journey to his apartment went well, since he had the skills to hide from most of the civilians. The shinobi generally didn't bother him, they just ignored him. That was one of the reasons he wanted to be a shinobi. They didn't like him, sure, but they didn't say nasty things to his face or try to hit him with rocks or rotten fruit.

And the ANBU that followed him around sometimes were completely awesome too. Almost better than multicolored post-it notes.

He didn't slam his door when he got inside, Hari hated it when he slammed doors, and he quickly went to the tiny, cramped table and pulled out his small - but growing - pile of colorful post-its that he'd snitched from Ojii-chan's office and sketched a small version of what Obito's goggles looked like.

Obviously he was drawing on an orange post-it, but it was either orange or lime green at this point.

He had a deft hand at drawing so the goggles looked pretty much like the ones that he could see on imaginary-Obito. He crowed in delight and tucked the post-it into his pants pocket. He thanked Hari for helping by showing him what Kakashi was describing.

He wondered, as his re-hemmed the end of his shirt with a fine needle and bright orange thread, if Kakashi had been telling the truth about them seeing each other again. Hari growled at him in a parental manner to stop thinking that the nice adult was lying. Naruto apologized to Hari and knotted the end of the thread. He examined the stitches for crookedness, and pleased with what he could see he tossed the shirt into his laundry bin, stripped out of his dark blue pants and jumped into bed.

He drifted away with Hari's soft growl-like purrs in his ears, Kakashi-nii's gentle story telling in his memory and a vision of _completely awesome_ goggles in his near future.

****To be Continued****


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N**: 'Nother chapter! So much fun with Harry as Kyuubi and Naruto as a little kid :)

**Chapter Summary**: Naruto's got goggles now! And someone keeps putting post-its on his pillow.

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The next time he saw Kakashi, Naruto was excited because when he'd woken up the morning after seeing the man for the first time, there was a pair of brilliant orange goggles sitting next to his bed. He didn't know who put them there or how they got there and Hari wasn't telling, but Naruto thought that maybe it had been Kakashi.

There was also a small stack of neon blue post-its on his pillow, which was _completely awesome_, so he had to make sure to hide them away so they didn't go missing. Then he had to take a moment to stare in awe at his orange, green, and blue post-its with a silly grin on his face. He really did love the things.

"Kakashi-nii!" Naruto lunged at the silver haired shinobi and Kakashi caught him and hugged him back.

Kakashi set him back down and leaned back to inspect the goggles on Naruto's head and Naruto could tell that he was smiling under his mask.

"And where did you find those?" He asked in a humorous tone and Naruto stuck his tongue out at him.

Hari-chan reprimanded him but Kakashi just laughed.

"Kakashi-nii," Naruto whined, "You're the only one who knows that I know about Obito-nii's goggles!"

"Yare, yare," Kakashi waved at him laconically and patted his head. His voice lowered and Hari had to tell Naruto that he sounded pleased because Naruto didn't catch the subtleties of his tone, "You're welcome."

Hari-chan asked Naruto to ask Kakashi something but Naruto didn't want to. Hari-chan insisted and finally Naruto gave in.

"Kakashi-nii, are you A.N.B.U.?" Naruto spelt out the acronym instead of saying it like a word and Kakashi jerked back in surprise.

"Excuse me?" He hunkered down so that he was eye-level with Naruto and Naruto frowned.

"Well, Hari-chan said to ask. Is not my fault that I do what he says." He protested, folding his arms over his chest and digging a toe into the grass under his sandals.

"Naruto-kun, who is Hari-chan?"

"I don't wanna tell you," Naruto said petulantly, "Hari-chan is important to me." Kakashi just looked at him with suspicious eyes and Naruto hung his head, scuffing the ground with his sandal, "He's special," Naruto told Kakashi, "He can talk to me, but he talks in my head!"

"... in your head?" Kakashi felt a shiver go down his spine, "Have you ever seen a picture of Hari-chan?"

"Yep!" Naruto brightened considerably, "He's tall! As tall as you, Kaka-nii! He has black hair and green eyes and he likes post-its too!"

"Oh really?" Kakashi smiled at Naruto and Naruto pirouetted, excited.

"Yeah! Sometimes he's red too. He says he wants yellow post-its tomorrow!"

"Yellow, eh?" Kakashi stood up and Naruto paused in his dancing to stare up at him with wide eyes.

"So tall..." He whispered and Kakashi chuckled.

"Not really," He waved a hand and Naruto jumped at it. "You're just like a squirrel on crack, aren't you?" He asked in a bemused tone, watching the boy hang off his wrist, swinging his body to and fro. "'Kay, let me go, now."

"But we're playin'!"

"Yes, yes we are, but I'd like to have some blood flowing to my fingers, thank you," Kakashi chuckled again as Naruto dropped back to the ground.

"Jus' lettin' you know, Kaka-nii, I ain't on crack," Naruto told him seriously as he pulled the teenager towards the training ground that he'd been using since Hari-chan had started training him.

"Yes, I know," Kakashi chuckled again and Naruto absently asked Hari-chan if there was something wrong with the silver haired man that made him laugh all the time. Hari-chan didn't answer.

So Naruto went on talking about anything and everything that caught his attention. He talked and talked and talked and Kakashi laughed _with_ him instead of _at_ him and he knew that Kakashi liked him. Actually liked him.

He pondered that as he went home when the sun started to set. Hmm. Another special person. He jumped excitedly; he had three people - five if he included Teuchi-jii and Ayame-nee - that liked him! It was _so_ _awesome_!

When he woke up the next morning, there were more post-its on his pillow, but they weren't yellow, they were so blinkingly pink he almost couldn't look at them. He loved them! He gently put them next to the other post-its in his little hide-away place. He took one of the new pink post-its off the stack and took it to the table. He'd use it to make a grocery list, that's what he'd do!

Ramen, obviously, was the first thing he listed. Then he needed to get milk and eggs. Hari-chan insisted that he add carrots and celery to the list, so he did. Grudgingly. It wasn't that he didn't like carrots and celery, but they spoiled so fast that he never had enough time to eat all of them.

Shopping was always weird for Naruto, but Hari-chan and the masked ANBU that were following him whispered things at him. Like that the early morning market was the best place to get the carrots, celery, eggs and milk. He bought his ramen at a regular grocery store.

He didn't have a wallet yet, Hari-chan told him that he'd get one later, so the masked man - or maybe it was a girl, Naruto never could tell, but he didn't really care - handed him the money he needed.

No one was mean to him anymore, but sometimes he was overlooked. It was nice to have a tall person around to gain attention so he could buy his stuffs.

Naruto hurried home with his pink post-it in hand, goggles on his head and groceries in his backpack. Hari-chan told him that the backpack was 'essential' but Naruto didn't know what that meant so he just shrugged when it had appeared in his room one day without warning.

A lot of stuff seemed to do that. Especially once Hari-chan started talking to him.

He wondered if he should ask Kakashi if he could watch and see if he could see Hari-chan put the stuff in his apartment when he was asleep, but then Hari-chan laughed and told him that no one could see him.

Naruto balked, stopping in the middle of the road, "Nobody?! Really?" Hari-chan laughed again and said that he'd was telling the truth. "Wow. So you're all alone, all the time?"

"Naruto-kun?" The masked person jumped down to him and Naruto looked at him.

"Nothing!" Naruto lunged at the ANBU and clambered up his - or her, whatever - back and locked his arms around his throat, "Can you take me home?" ANBU nodded and then there was a whirlwind of leaves and Naruto looked around his living room in shock. "What was _that_?!"

"Shunshin," ANBU said mildly and then vanished in the same way that Naruto imagined Hari-chan must come and go at night, leaving stuff for him.

"That's _so awesome_!" He exclaimed and started putting his food away. "Hari-chan, are you gonna teach me that?!"

Hari-chan smirked in his head and told him that he'd learn it when he was older.

With nothing else to do for the day, Naruto figured that he'd go visit Jiji, maybe snitch some more post-its, and see how Old Man Sarutobi was doing.

"Jiji!" Naruto burst through the doors and caught a flicker of ANBU leaving. "Jiji! You have ANBU too! That's so cool!"

Old Man Sarutobi smiled at Naruto and Naruto couldn't help but smile back and rub the back of his head. Hari-chan told him that he had interrupted something important.

"Naruto-kun, how are you doing?"

"I'm'a good! Kaka-nii and Obi-nii are looking out for me!" Naruto jumped around the room, examining all the paper and little crevasses that he could find, looking for some post-its.

"Oh?" Old Man Sarutobi smiled, "You made some friends?"

"Yeah, Kaka-nii is totally awesome, and Obi-nii looks out from his _eye_," Naruto explained, "Obi-nii was always late, and his tadpoles make Kaka-nii late too." Jiji coughed and Naruto looked at him curiously. "Jiji? You 'kay?"

"Yes, yes," Jiji waved his question off and Naruto climbed up the side of his desk, pulling out drawers to make steps, "Tadpoles?" He asked and Naruto grinned, sitting in the middle of the big desk.

"Totally!" Naruto leaned forward to whisper, "Kaka-nii says they're called 'tomoe', but they look like tadpoles swimming in his eye." He tilted his head to the side, thinking about it, "I wonder if he can feel them swimming..."

"I'm sure that if Kakashi-san could feel the 'tadpoles' swimming in his eye, he'd tell someone," Jiji mused.

"I dunno," Naruto blinked and looked up at the ceiling, "Kaka-nii don't say a lot about the tadpoles. Hey," He looked at Jiji with wide eyes, "You have any post-its? I can't find any."

"It just so happens," Jiji reached into one of the drawers that Naruto had opened and pulled something out, "That I do." He offered the object to Naruto and Naruto looked at it critically.

"They ain't bright," He mourned. He wanted bright post-its and Jiji was offering him a dull yellow pile of post-its. He took them anyway. Well, he couldn't object when they were yellow. Hari-chan wanted yellow ones after all.

"Sorry, Naruto-kun," Jiji messed up Naruto's hair and Naruto ducked away, rolling off the edge of the desk. Jiji looked over the corner and Naruto grinned up at him.

"Ain't hurt!" He exclaimed, jumping to his feet. Hari-chan prodded him and he waved the dull post-its at Jiji, "Thanks, Jiji!"

He waved again and barreled out the door, almost running into a tall, bald, frowning man with scars on his face. He stuck his tongue out at him for calling him a brat and continued on his way.

Finding Kaka-nii at The Stone - he didn't know what it was really called so he just called it The Stone - Naruto clamped his arms around his waist.

"Obi-nii's tadpoles are making you late. Jiji said that you'd tell someone if you could feel the tadpoles swimming. Can you feel them swimming in Obi-nii's eye? Are you gonna be late when I graduate from the Academy? What are you doing right now? You busy..."

"Whoa! Hold your horses, Naruto-kun," Kakashi patted Naruto's back, "Did you have any sugar this morning?"

"Nah, I just talked to Jiji, he gave me dull post-its, but he was talking with ANBU before I talked to him and then I told him that ANBU are awesome and he was coughing when I said that Obi-nii was watching me in your head..."

"Calm!" Kakashi yelped, covering Naruto's mouth with his hand. Naruto mumbled that he was calm from behind Kakashi's hand but Kakashi obviously didn't believe him because he wouldn't take his hand back. Naruto debated what Kakashi would do if he licked his hand.

Then he did it.

Kakashi just shot him a look. Naruto didn't know what kind of look it was, but it was a look.

Naruto crossed his arms and pouted. Kakashi let him go but before he could say anything, Kakashi raised a hand with one finger extended. Hari-chan told him that that meant Kakashi wanted a moment.

So Naruto gave Kakashi a moment then started talking again. "So what'cha doin'?" He poked at The Stone, "You saying 'hi' to Obi-nii?" He looked between The Stone and Kakashi's covered eye, "Do you gotta? I mean, he's inside your head, yeah?"

"Naruto-kun," Kakashi sat down on the grass heavily and Naruto squirmed into his lap, looking up at him with wide blue eyes that Kakashi seemed to think had the answers to the world in them, "Many of my friends are... gone."

"You mean-" Naruto almost blurted out 'dead', but Hari-chan told him to stop, so he did. Kakashi nodded anyway, hearing what he hadn't said.

"All of them have their names carved into the Memorial Stone." Kakashi reached out and brushed a finger of the carvings that Naruto couldn't read - but Hari-chan could - and his voice dropped, "I spend my time here remembering them."

"Oh," Naruto lowered his head. He was sorry that Kakashi's friends were dead. He knew dead people too. Sometimes, if Hari-chan showed him, he could see them walking in the streets, following people. He never spoke to them though. He wasn't sure if he didn't talk to them because he was afraid that they'd answer, or afraid that they wouldn't.

"I get sad when I think of them," Kakashi told him quietly and Naruto nodded. He didn't tell Kakashi that he didn't talk to dead people. Hari-chan rubbed his hair and gave his mind a hug. Kakashi hugged his body.

It was nice that they were both hugging him at the same time.

"When you're done talkin' to 'em," Naruto wondered out loud, "Can we play again?"

"Sure," Kakashi let him go and he turned to the long grass. He might as well practice his grass-walking while he waited.

****To be Continued****


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N**: I wasn't planning on the ghosts being a big thing for this, but apparently Hari has something planned for Naruto seeing ghosts. So the dead people have invaded my fic :D

**Chapter Summary**: Naruto can see dead people and they've started talking to him.

*****xxxXXXxxx*****

"Hey, Nii-chan, where've you been?" Naruto asked Kakashi as he idly played with the piece of grass in his hand. It had been several weeks since Naruto had last seen Kakashi, but when the man had come by his apartment suddenly without warning, he'd been more than ready to play with him for a few hours.

He was curious as to where Kakashi had been, hence his question, but he didn't really expect an answer. After all, Hari-chan had showed him the new dead person that was following Kakashi around.

Sometimes he got an urge to talk to the dead people, but never the newly dead. He could tell the new dead from the old because they were always screaming about being ignored. Naruto felt sorry that the dead people felt like they were being ignored because he didn't like being ignored either, but Hari-chan told him no one would like knowing he saw the dead people.

Kakashi's new dead person wasn't screaming though, just following him around. Since Naruto hadn't seen this dead person before, he was assuming he was new.

"Just away," Kakashi patted his hair. It was late afternoon and it was fall now and Naruto flopped over onto his back beside Kakashi, looking up at the sky.

"...You gonna be here for my birthday?" Naruto asked after a bit. He'd never had anyone other than Jiji come by on his birthday, but Hari-chan told him that he always had ANBU around his apartment on that day.

Last year he'd left out some cookies for them after going to bed. When he'd woken up the next morning, they'd been gone.

"I don't know," Kakashi hummed, "Are you doing anything for your birthday?"

"Not really," Naruto muttered then he cheered up, "I'm'a gonna make cookies though," He smiled, sat up and threw himself over Kakashi's chest. Kakashi grunted, but caught him. "I give'em to ANBU. Last year they ate my cookies that I left'em."

"Really?" Kakashi said in a lazy voice.

Naruto grinned widely, "You can have a couple before I give'em out!"

"That sounds really nice, Naruto-kun." Kakashi's hand on his back stroked up and down his spine and Naruto felt a little sleepy.

A call from the dead person shook him awake and Naruto looked over to see the mostly invisible man tracing a name on the Memorial Stone. Getting up off of Kakashi, Naruto wandered over to The Stone and sat in front of it. He reached out and traced over the name the dead man had touched. Nara Mamoru, Hari told him the name that he was touching.

"Did he die?" Naruto asked Kakashi and looked up to see Kakashi standing over him, staring at him.

"All the people on the Memorial Stone are dead, Naruto-kun," Kakashi told him and Naruto rolled his eyes.

"I know that," Naruto huffed then calmed, "I mean; did yah see him die? When you were gone away?"

Kakashi just looked at him with sad eyes. "Why do you want to know?" That was a strange question and Naruto shrugged his shoulders.

He knew that the man was dead and he knew when he'd died, and Naruto was pretty sure that he knew how the guy died, what with the burns all over his face and the open throat. "Was it bad?" Naruto asked.

Kakashi blinked, "Yes."

"You wanna talk 'bout it?"

Naruto didn't want to talk about it, but he wanted his big brother to feel comfortable so he'd be okay with talking about something he didn't want talk about as long as it helped Kakashi.

"Not really," Kakashi rubbed his hair, "Hey, Naruto."

"Yeah?"

"How did you know that Mamoru-san died while I was away?"

Naruto bit his lip. Hari was telling him that he shouldn't say, but Naruto didn't want to hide this from Kakashi anymore. With a final huff, Hari told him that he'd washed his hands of it and it was up to Naruto.

Naruto didn't know what that meant, but he was pretty happy that Hari didn't mind if he told Kakashi now.

"I can see him."

"See who?" Kakashi cocked his head to the side, curious. Naruto blushed.

"The dead people. I don't talk to them, but I can see 'em." Naruto ducked his head and looked away, a bit embarrassed, "Hari-chan didn't want me to tell you, but the new dead person touched his name on The Stone." He looked up to Kakashi and saw something in his face that looked horrible. Naruto's eyes widened and he scooted away from Kakashi, "I'm sorry, I didn't, I won't... I--" Naruto flinched away when Kakashi's hand reached out to him.

There was a moment of silence and Kakashi only placed his hand on Naruto's head, "You can see ghosts?"

"H-Hari-chan lets me see 'em," Naruto quivered under the strong hand on the crown of his head. He wasn't really scared of Kakashi, but he was scared of what his big brother would do now that he knew how abnormal Naruto was.

"You... can see him?" Kakashi was looking around as though he would be able to see the invisible person too, but couldn't seem to, "What-- what do you see? What does he look like?"

"He's all-- all burned," Naruto stuttered, "An' his throat-- someone cut it." He didn't want to keep looking at the dead man.

"Naruto," Kakashi pulled him into his arms, "Can you talk to him?"

"No!" Naruto buried his face in Kakashi's chest, "Don't make me talk to 'em! Please!?"

"Shh, shh, It's okay, I won't ask you again, it's okay, it's okay," Kakashi rocked Naruto a bit and Naruto clutched at his vest.

Naruto's voice was very tiny as he asked, "You promise?"

"I promise, Naruto, I promise, I won't ask you to talk to them again."

The dead man watched with sad eyes and didn't say anything. Naruto didn't like being watched by him. He hoped that the dead person wouldn't go and tell the others that he could see them.

"_Can you tell him that I'm sorry?_" Mamoru whispered and Naruto flinched away, begging Hari to stop letting him see the dead. Hari didn't respond. "_Can you tell him that I'm sorry I failed?_"

Naruto buried his face in Kakashi's neck. He didn't want to see him anymore, he didn't want to hear him anymore, he didn't want anything to do with any of them anymore. He hated seeing the dead. It had been cool in the beginning, seeing what others couldn't, but it wasn't cool anymore. Not now that they were seeing him too and talking.

"Nii-chan?" Naruto whispered, "I don't want to talk to him anymore."

"Is he talking to you?" Kakashi practically crushed Naruto to his chest and Naruto felt surprisingly safe.

"He's says he's sorry, sorry he failed."

"_Thank you, Senkensha*._" The dead person smiled in a gruesome way and then faded away. Naruto hid his face in Kakashi's neck again.

Naruto relaxed and sighed in relief against Kakashi's neck.

"Is he gone, Naruto-kun?"

"Yeah. I think-- I think he just wanted to give you the message." Naruto leaned back and looked down, away from Kakashi. "I wasn't gonna tell you about him, about it..." He trailed off and a hiccup caught him off guard, "I don't wanna see them Nii-chan, I don't wanna see them anymore."

Kakashi shook his head and grasped Naruto's chin and turned his face back to him, "Naruto-kun," his voice lowered, "How long have you been able to see the dead?"

"Um..." Naruto shrugged, "Hari-chan started showing me them when I started doing chakra exercises."

"So just after you turned five, almost a year ago, yes?" Kakashi's voice was still low and gentle. Naruto liked it like that.

"Yeah." Kakashi hugged him tight. "You-- you don't mind?" Kakashi smiled at Naruto and shook his head, "Or-- or think it's creepy? I heard someone say that if they could see the dead it'd be creepy."

"Nah," Kakashi ruffled his hair, "It's not creepy, not really. It's an unusual ability for the eyes, but then again, I have tadpoles in my eye right?"

Naruto giggled and poked Kakashi's cheek under the covered eye, "Yeah, you got tadpoles."

Kakashi reached into his vest and withdrew a small bundle wrapped in flimsy tissue paper. Naruto thought it was some kind of present wrapping paper, but he was surprised to see that it was orange-ish. "Naruto-kun, I came across a small town when I was away and I saw something that I thought you might like," He handed the package over and Naruto looked it over from every angle, "I know that your birthday isn't for another month, but after--" He bit his lip, "I thought you could use a little cheering up."

"Thank you, Nii-chan!" Naruto wanted to rip open his present - the third present he'd ever gotten in his life - but was very careful with the taped corners, peeling the sticky stuff back and taking care to keep the tissue in relatively one piece. It was just too awesome of a color to ruin.

Inside were the most intensely purple post-its he'd ever seen.

Naruto crowed in delight and hugged Kakashi as hard as possible.

Rolling Naruto out of his lap, Kakashi play-tackled the boy and tickled him fiercely, laughing a creaky laugh. Naruto imagined that Kakashi didn't laugh too often even if he did tend to chuckle a lot.

Wanting to show Kakashi how much he appreciated his gift, Naruto asked the older boy over to his apartment. Kakashi quirked an eyebrow at him and Naruto blushed.

"I can make supper!" He exclaimed, "I wanna show you that I can cook!"

"Alright," Kakashi let Naruto grab his hand and pull him back towards the village. As they walked, Kakashi asked him a few questions. "So, Naruto, are you joining the Academy early?"

"Nah, Jiji said I had to wait until I was seven. I don' wanna, but he don' believe that I have the 'necessary' skills to get in early."

Kakashi coughed into his hand, "Oh really?" Kakashi figured that he was going to need to have a little talk with the Professor, because anyone who was almost six and could water-walk had more than enough skill to join the Academy early. At least, by Kakashi's standards.

"Yeah! I know, so dumb, but I really can't read too good, even with Hari-chan teaching me. I mean, I got good romaji reading, but kanji and the two kana's are kickin' my ass all over! Hiragana and katakana are hard! And kanji? I can't tell if I'm'a supposed to read it as on'yomi or kun'yomi!"

"I see." Kakashi couldn't believe that the only reason Naruto wasn't joining the Academy early was his ability to read. Naruto had already shown an exceptional ability to retain spoken information, so as long as he actually listened to the teachers, it shouldn't be hard for him to get the tests done; after all, the tests did allow romaji as a valid writing style.

In fact, since romaji was so rare, there should be extra points awarded for a test finished fully in romaji writing.

Kakashi had to spare a moment to wonder where Naruto had learned romaji though, because he didn't know anyone who knew those characters well enough to teach them and actually _liked_ Naruto.

"I know, its complete balls, is what it is," Naruto muttered and jiggled the lock on his door. Kakashi was surprised to find that he'd been so involved thinking about Sarutobi's refusal to let Naruto start at the Academy early that he'd pretty much missed the entire walk to Naruto's apartment. He was even more surprised to see that the apartment was clean and organized. He shot a look at Naruto and Naruto put a hand on his hip and scowled, "What? You thought it'd be all messy? I ain't the average five year old, Nii-chan."

"No, no you're not. I would appreciate it though, if you were to stop swearing," Kakashi mused, "You're a little young for those kind of words."

"I'm old enough to be living alone," Naruto rebutted as he pulled the flour out of the cupboard.

"Yes, but you're still very young."

"Fine, Nii-chan," Naruto huffed as he continued pulling ingredients from the other cupboards, "I'll try to stop."

Kakashi watched as Naruto pulled out medium sized bowl and started pretty much dumping in what seemed to be random ingredients. Finally he had to speak up when Naruto poured a bit of salt into his hand and was about to throw it in the bowl, "Naruto, shouldn't you have a recipe and some measuring utensils?"

"Nah, I'm making dumplin's. I'm supposed to add a teaspoon of salt."

"That-- doesn't really look like a teaspoon of salt, Naruto." Kakashi raised an eyebrow. Naruto rolled his eyes but dipped his free hand into a drawer and pulled out a measuring spoon. Kakashi watched as Naruto poured the salt from his hand into the teaspoon measuring spoon and was pretty amazed that what Naruto had poured into his hand originally was exactly a teaspoon.

"See? I know what I'm doing," Naruto dumped the spoon of salt into the mixture and continued making his dumplings. Kakashi watched with a small smile on his face.

"So where did you learn to cook?"

"I have skills," Naruto boasted, then shrugged, "Nah, really? Hari-chan taught me. He's really good at it even if some of the food that he teaches me is a little weird."

Kakashi frowned under his mask. He was fairly certain, from what he'd heard about Hari, was that the voice inside Naruto's head was the Kyuubi. The only thing that he knew of that had harmed Naruto though, was the ability 'Hari' have given to Naruto to see ghosts. "Naruto-kun," He leaned back in his chair, "May I ask a question or two about Hari-san?"

"Yeah, kay!"

"You said that he talked to you in your head, right?"

"Yeah!" Naruto expertly rolled the dumplings and set them to the side as he got out a large pot and pulled something from the freezer, "I made stew yesterday and didn't eat it all! I fig'red we could have it tonight!"

"That sounds very nice," Kakashi sighed, "Naruto, Hari-san showed you a mental image of himself, yeah? That's how you know what he looks like, right?"

"Yeah," Naruto drawled out, eyeballing Kakashi, "Why?"

"You also said that he was red sometimes."

"Oh, yeah. He can turn into a big red fox! With lots o' tails!"

So he'd been right. This 'Hari' that Naruto was talking to in his head was the Kyuubi. "Naruto, do you trust him?"

"Well, yeah," Naruto looked at him with confusion, "Why wouldn't I? I mean, he saved my life, yah know?"

Kakashi shifted uncomfortably. He couldn't tell Naruto who 'Hari' was without breaking the Sandaime's law, but he didn't want Naruto going any further under the Kyuubi's thrall. "Naruto, can you tell me if he's ever done anything that hurt you?"

Naruto stared at Kakashi. He couldn't believe what his big brother was saying. "You don't get to say that to me," Naruto stated, angry. Hari was hissing and spitting in his head and Naruto wasn't happy that someone had accused Hari of hurting him.

"Naruto?"

"Hari-chan hasn't done nothing but help me. He wants me happy and healthy and well."

"But seeing the dead people, Naruto-kun, that hurts you."

Naruto ducked his head away then looked back, lifting his chin in defiance, "I wanted to see them. Hari-chan said he could show me, so he did. And it was really cool. But then your dead person, the one that was following you, he scared me. It had nothin' ta do with Hari-chan."

Kakashi raised a hand and nodded, "Okay, I understand. Naruto-kun," He sighed, "If-- I'm not accusing Hari-san of anything, but if he does do something that hurts you, will you tell me?"

Naruto debated it internally and it was only Hari-chan insisting that he say yes that he finally nodded, "Fine. Hari-chan wants you to know that he never wants me hurt, so if he does something that hurts me, he wants to know. So I'll tell you and then Hari-chan will know too."

It was probably the best compromise that Kakashi was going to get, so he nodded again and Naruto returned to reheating the stew and making the dumplings.

Kakashi would just have to make sure that he was around more often so that if 'Hari' ever did do anything to Naruto, he would be there for him.

****To be Continued****

_*Senkensha: Seer_


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N**: Whee! I'm totally on a roll with this :)**  
Chapter Summary**: Kakashi takes Naruto to someone to talk about the ghosts that he sees. Naruto doesn't want to talk about it.  
**Warnings:** Brief descriptions of gore from injuries causing death. I've upped the rating from K+ to T.

*****xxxXXXxxx*****

Naruto hung off of Kakashi's elbow, swinging back and forth, humming to himself. Kakashi smiled down at the boy and led him down the hall towards his apartment. They'd spent the day together and he was once again stunned by the information that Naruto was able to impart to him from those no one else could hear or see.

He didn't want to broach the subject of Naruto's ability again so soon after finding out about it, but it was important. The ability to see ghosts would be a great benefit to Konoha in many ways, but Naruto would pay a heavy price if he still wanted to become shinobi.

"I thought that you'd perhaps like to talk to someone about Mamoru-san and the others," Kakashi queried lightly, hoping not to sound too interested. He didn't want Naruto to shy away from him.

"The dead people?" Naruto scowled and let go of Kakashi's arm. He crossed his arms and pouted, "I don't wanna talk about 'em."

"Naruto-kun," Kakashi faced Naruto and crouched down just outside of Naruto's door so that he was eye level with the boy, "I think it's important that you tell someone about what you see. It'll help."

Naruto cocked his head to the side, his blond hair flopping sideways into his eyes. He brushed it out of his field of vision, "Hari-chan won't talk to me 'bout it." He finally admitted, "I think-- I think something went wrong."

Kakashi felt his heart constrict. There wasn't anything he could do about stopping the Kyuubi from talking to Naruto except getting Jiraiya called back to Konoha to strengthen the seal. "Has he told you what he did?"

A scowl passed over Naruto's face, "He muttered something about opening pathways that can't be closed. Then he said that my chakra was keeping them open; the pathways, I mean."

"So," Kakashi rubbed a hand through his hair, "Hari-san opened up your mind so you could see ghosts, but now that your chakra has traversed the pathways he made, he can't close them again? Is that why you're still seeing ghosts?"

"I don't know," Naruto huffed, "Hari-chan made paths and said that I put chakra into them and now he can't close 'em." He shrugged defensively, "I didn't mean to."

"I know," Kakashi pulled Naruto into a hug, "It's okay." Kakashi could see an apartment mate of Naruto's glancing at him with incredulous eyes as he let himself into Naruto's neighboring apartment, but didn't let that stop him from comforting the boy. Naruto needed him more than he needed a reputation, especially _inside_ of the village.

Kakashi couldn't find it in himself to tell Naruto that he would never be shinobi with his Kyuubi-given ability scaring him like it was. And there was only one man that Kakashi knew of in Konoha who could condition Naruto to not be afraid of the incorporeal dead.

"Are you sure that you don't want to talk to someone about it?" Kakashi asked again, "You know that shinobi die on missions;" he didn't want to crush Naruto's spirit by commenting on how many enemy shinobi usually died on a mission, or the assassination missions that they could be sent on, "Do you think that you could handle seeing your friends after they've died? Would you understand that they wouldn't be able to physically help you after they've died?"

Naruto hummed and ahhed over it for a long time and finally his head swung low and he sighed, looking at the floor, "I guess not. Do you-- Do you know someone I can talk to?"

He looked up in hope and Kakashi had to stop himself from melting under the force of Naruto's wide, pleading sky-blue eyes.

"I may know one person. We can see him tomorrow, if you want?"

"I wanna be shinobi!" Naruto exclaimed. He'd never really wanted anything else and he wasn't about to let this stop him, "You can take me to see your friend tomorrow! So I can go to the academy? Maybe Jiji will let me in early if I talk about it, yeah?"

"I can see what I can do about that," Kakashi stood, ruffled Naruto's hair, and watched him enter his apartment.

He had someone, several someones, to talk to.

-

Kakashi picked Naruto up the next morning, bright and early. Naruto was dressed in bright orange pants and a black tee-shirt under an orange jacket. He would have questioned Naruto about his choice in clothing if he hadn't know how the civilians in Konoha ignored the boy on purpose.

Naruto chatted away a mile a minute as Kakashi collected him into his arms and using the _completely awesome_ shunshin, transported them into a building.

Naruto had no idea where he was or how he'd get home, but he still had Kakashi with him. His hand reached out and grasped Kakashi's hand tightly, "So, who's your friend you're takin' me to see?" Naruto questioned, spying a secretary at the desk writing on a plain white post-it.

"Well," Kakashi smiled down at Naruto, understanding exactly why the rather independent child had taken his hand, "Why don't we go see him and he can introduce himself?" He left his hand in Naruto's and Naruto leaned into his hip.

"Okay." Naruto was quiet for the rest of the walk to the office that Kakashi knew his 'friend' was in.

Kakashi had only _sort-of_ warned Morino Ibiki about what was going to be happening today. It wasn't that he didn't want the man to know about Naruto's ability, but he wanted to have a little fun too, and what better way for him to get a laugh than to watch Ibiki possibly freak-out about security risks from ghosts?

The silver haired man knocked once on the door as a warning that he was coming in and then opened it, pushing Naruto just a little so he went inside the room first. He knew that there was no danger in this office, not with Ibiki in it.

Naruto grabbed his hand immediately and his eyes were the widest Kakashi had ever seen.

"Naruto-kun? What's wrong?" He crouched again, drawing Naruto under his arm in a protective movement. Naruto shook his head and looked up at him and Kakashi could see that the boy was almost scared. Not quite scared, but close. "Is there someone here?"

"Uhm--" Naruto licked his lips, "I-- He--"

"Kakashi-san, what's the meaning of this?" Ibiki's powerful voice filled the room and Kakashi waved a hand at him without looking up, telling Ibiki silently that he would be with him as soon as he was done paying attention to Naruto.

"What is it, Naruto-kun?"

"I--No-nothing," Naruto stuttered and blinked then turned back to Ibiki and kept his eyes steadily focused on only the man and nothing else.

"Alright," Kakashi hesitated then stood back up. He turned to Ibiki, "Morino Ibiki, this is Uzumaki Naruto. Naruto-kun, my friend: Ibiki-san." He gestured between the two of them and Naruto raised a hand to wave.

"Hello Ibiki-ji-san." Naruto remembered seeing this man before, outside of Jiji's office. He'd called Naruto a brat and Naruto had just stuck his tongue out at him and ran off to see Kakashi. That had been before Kakashi had gone away for so long.

Ibiki's non-existent eyebrows rose at the suffix on his name. He wasn't anyone's 'uncle'."Naruto-kun. Kakashi-san." his dark eyes pinned Kakashi where the shinobi stood, "May I kindly ask why you are here?"

"Well," Kakashi completely ignored the killing intent flavored air in favor of a one-eyed, upside-down smile at the head of the Torture and Interrogation Department, "Naruto-kun here has a very special ability and he needs to talk to someone about it."

Ibiki assessed Naruto with a keen eye, asking Kakashi, "And you couldn't be the one to talk to him?"

Naruto gripped tight to Kakashi's leg, "Nii-chan knows. But--" He stuttered to a halt then licked his lips and tried again, "But you have more."

"I have more what?" Ibiki's growlish voice lowered and if Naruto had been any other child he would have found it scary. Instead he found it comforting. Ibiki sounded a little like Hari did when Hari was big and red.

"Dead people," Naruto said.

Ibiki jerked back, surprised enough that even with his impressive training he showed his shock. He quickly composed himself though, "And how do you know that?"

Naruto's gaze flickered from Ibiki to one of the men hovering over Ibiki's shoulders and then back to the scarred face, "I can see 'em."

Ibiki hunkered down, his knees feeling like they ought to creak, though they didn't. "Who do you see, Naruto-kun?"

"I see--" Naruto paused and glanced around the room, "They don't tell me their names," he pointed at the man who was half decapitated, "He says he died two days ago. You cut his head off. And that one," he gestured to one of the women who was bloody and grinning grotesquely, "She says that you--" He frowned and his face screwed up in concentration, "She says you used 'thumbtacks and a screwdriver'." Naruto shivered and leaned forward, confiding in the big man, "She has brains leaking out her eyeball. It's kinda creepy."

Ibiki stared at the boy, wide-eyed.

That information was confidential. That information was not yet available for people with clearance even as high as Kakashi had.

That information was not something he ever expected to hear from a small child.

"You--" Ibiki cleared his throat, "You can see people who have died. Around me." Ibiki wasn't sure if he meant or understood that Naruto could see the people who had died around him or if there were just dead people hovering around him.

It wasn't really a question, but Naruto figured that he was supposed to answer anyway.

"Yeah. You got a lot of 'em. Nii-chan only has a couple. I don't tell him about the dead either, but sometimes I tell him what they're screaming at people. I think it's creepy, but Nii-chan doesn't mind." Naruto shrugged his shoulders. He did think it was creepy and he sometimes thought Kakashi was even creepier for not finding it creepy. But Kakashi was his big brother and he'd never push the silver haired man away.

"Hn."

Ibiki stood up and looked over to Kakashi. Kakashi signaled that Naruto wanted to be a shinobi, but that this ability would hinder him. Ibiki gave a short nod of understanding. And he could; understand, that is. He understood that seeing ghosts of people you've killed, or friends who've died, would inhibit the killing edge that shinobi needed.

Naruto bit his lip hesitantly, "Ibiki-ji-san, do you want to know what they're saying?"

"Not really," Ibiki muttered, "But I assume that they say a lot?"

"The lady wants you dead. She doesn't like you. She also says that she lied," Naruto tilted his head to the side, "She just laughed and said that you'll never know who the traitor she contacted is now."

Ibiki sharpened up. This was interesting. If Naruto could get answers from the dead, he'd be a great boon to the T&I Department.

"Did she say who she met with?"

"--Uragiru Kokuzoku." Naruto's face tightened in fear and he grabbed tight to Kakashi's leg, burying his head in the soft material of his pants. Kakashi hugged Naruto tight.

"Naruto-kun?" Kakashi whispered and Naruto sniffled.

"She's screaming at me, Nii-chan," the boy whined softly. "I don't like it."

Ibiki raised his chin and stared at the ceiling. This was a situation that he had no idea what to do. It was probably the first time that he'd ever felt unsure about his next actions.

He wanted to help the boy, obviously, but deep in his heart, there was fear. Fear of the unknown, fear of Kyuubi, fear of Naruto himself.

It had been a long time since he'd felt as much fear as he did now.

It didn't help _at all_ that he was worried about who else could get information from the dead.

A sudden thought occurred and Ibiki grinned maliciously. He could use the boy and help him at the same time. Two shinobi, one jutsu. Perfect.

"Naruto-kun," Ibiki bent down and rested his hand gently on Naruto's mop of blond hair, "Have you ever touched a ghost?"

Naruto looked up with wide eyes from Kakashi's vest and stared at the imposing man. Hari told him to trust the man. "No?" He answered unsurely. He'd tried to touch a ghost once, but his hand had gone right through it.

"Has a ghost ever hurt you?" Ibiki asked again, getting a feel for how to handle the child. He'd never been very good with small children in the first place. It was a wonder that his little brother even admitted to being related to him.

Naruto blinked, curious, "No?" He didn't know where Ibiki was going with his questions, but Hari seemed pleased enough with them. He wondered if Ibiki was really going to help him.

"Do you think the woman screaming at you can hurt you?"

Ibiki's voice was still soft and growly and Naruto rather liked it. He slowly crept from Kakashi's arms towards Ibiki. "She says things that hurt."

"But she can't hurt you," Ibiki let Naruto cuddle up to him. He wasn't exactly sure what he was supposed to do - _was he supposed to hug the boy?_ - so he didn't make any movements at all.

"You're right," Naruto's lips curled up in a smile, "But she's still screaming." He didn't like that, "She hates that I told you the name you didn't get when she was alive."

Ibiki nodded. He could understand why the dead prisoner would hate that she'd managed to take her information to the grave with her only to blurt it out to someone who could tell her torturer what she'd died to keep. Frustration would be the least of what he would feel.

"Naruto-kun, is she trying to touch you?" He was curious if the ghosts would actually try to harm Naruto for telling their secrets.

Naruto shook his head and reached up, wrapping his arms around Ibiki's neck. It took all the training Ibiki had ever required to not push the boy away. Or, you know, kill him accidently. "She's just screaming. Hari-chan says that she knows she can't touch me, so she doesn't even bother to try."

In front of Ibiki, Kakashi stiffened and Ibiki looked at the elite shinobi sharply. He wouldn't try to get Naruto to tell him about this Hari that had just been introduced into their conversations, not right now, but he would be having a serious discussion with Kakashi after Naruto left, that was for sure.

"Why are you scared of them, if they don't hurt you?"

"I-- I thought it would be cool, you know? To see things that no one else could, so Hari-chan said that he could help me see dead people, but then they scared me because they were dead and bleeding and I never talked to them and they never talked to me and now Hari-chan can't stop me from seeing them because of something that I did and--"

"Shh," Kakashi reached out and stroked Naruto's back gently, "It's okay now, no one's mad and they can't hurt you."

Ibiki slowly brought his arms up around Naruto's shoulders and tentatively tried a hug. Naruto didn't seem to mind, so he didn't let go immediately.

Kakashi knew that Ibiki felt uncomfortable holding Naruto, but it was better to get Naruto to trust Ibiki than to preserve his own dignity at this point.

Once Naruto had calmed down, he leaned back to look Ibiki in the face and Ibiki let him go with easy hands. He smiled up at his new friend, "Thank you, Ibiki-ji-san."

Ibiki smiled back and Naruto thought his smile looked funny, like it was supposed to mean or something, and he patted him on the head gently, "You're welcome, Naruto-kun."

Naruto looked over to see the woman staring at him with anger in the eye she had left. He shivered and turned back to Ibiki, "She's still mad."

"But she isn't hurting you," Ibiki said and Naruto nodded. He didn't know how the man had done it, but he was relieved that she'd stopped yelling at him.

Kakashi pulled Naruto into his arms and stood up, Ibiki following his action closely, "Naruto, would you like to keep talking now?"

"Can-- Maybe later?" Naruto laid his head on Kakashi's shoulder and blinked slowly, "I'm tired."

"That's fine," Ibiki smiled again and Naruto giggled softly at the not-mean smile. Ibiki wasn't used to smiling, he could see; just like Kakashi wasn't used to laughing. "Why don't you come back later, maybe tomorrow, and we'll talk again?"

"Okay." Naruto sighed and relaxed, closing his eyes. It was a lot easier to ignore the dead when he wasn't looking at them.

Ibiki watched Kakashi take the child away and sat behind his desk. He pulled out a handful of papers and started drafting a course to desensitize Naruto to the dead that he could see.

His lips twitched as he added several lessons in an interrogation room for Naruto to watch someone die so they could first, find out how quickly someone became a ghost, and second, see how well it worked at an interrogation technique, threatening the shinobi who thought they could take their secrets to the grave.

He quickly penned a note for his second in command to contact him as soon as he came in on a post-it and as he left for lunch, slapped the pale pink post-it on his 2IC's office door.

****To be Continued****


	5. Chapter 5

**A/N**: Sorry guys, I had a hard two weeks and didn't get _anything_ written for any of my stories. But I'm back now :D

**Chapter Summary**: Hari-chan's not happy with what Ibiki-ji-san's been doing to Naruto, but Naruto doesn't think he's all that different.

*****xxxXXXxxx*****

"Hate to be the bearer of bad news," Yamanaka Inoichi stepped into the room and hefted a sheaf of papers, "But it seems that we have--" He stopped as he stared into the interrogation room that Ibiki was watching. "What the hell?"

"Inoichi-san," Ibiki smiled predatorily, "What's the bad news you have for me?" Inoichi had, at one point, been the head of the department, but when his daughter had joined the Academy's introduction class for aspiring shinobi in September, he'd stepped down to spend more time at his home with his family.

"Just--" Inoichi cocked his head to the side, staring at the small boy wearing dark clothing and a half mask over his face along with a bandana around his head, hiding his hair, "Who the hell is that? I'm pretty damn sure that we don't have a child on the payroll."

"Senkensha-san isn't on our payroll," Ibiki said, "He's going through desensitization training."

Inoichi turned his eyes from the one-way glass to stare at Ibiki, "You're 'desensitizing' a child? What is this, a training ground for Ne?"

Ibiki growled, "No," He was ashamed of himself enough, he didn't need Inoichi exasperating it, "He has a certain ability that causes him to need desensitizing."

"And what the hell kind of 'ability' does the kid have that requires _you_ and the T&I?"

"He can see ghosts." Ibiki muttered. He never would have believed it if Naruto hadn't proved it to him, so he doesn't expect Inoichi to believe him, not fully. "He sees them as they were when they died and he wants to be shinobi."

And that was the rub. Naruto, even after seeing what he'd seen in the halls of the department, still wanted to be shinobi. Ibiki wasn't sure how it managed it, but the boy was still smiling and laughing and happy despite turning cold as stone the moment he stepped into an interrogation room.

Ibiki had only seen Naruto seriously freak out, and almost break, once. For some reason though, that had seemed to strengthen the boy's resolve to be happy and carefree.

"Ghosts." Inoichi dead-panned. The tall blond raised an eyebrow, "Ghosts?" His voice rose, "He's a child, Ibiki! All children see boogie-men under the bed and ghosts in the dark!"

"Not like Senkensha sees them," Ibiki muttered again. "Watch," He gestured to the room and Inoichi shook his head.

"No. I am not watching you break a child. You know," Inoichi sneered and shook his head again, "I thank the gods every day that I got out before I started to think that _this_ kind of stuff was acceptable. Ibiki, it's not. Not at all."

Ibiki paused, his entire body in stasis, and then he nodded, "I know," He agreed quietly. "But my loyalty to Konoha will never waver."

"Not even if 'Konoha' tells you to torture a child."

Not even then.

But Ibiki couldn't say that out loud. He didn't dare.

After all, it hadn't been Konoha who had asked him to 'help' Naruto, it had been Hatake Kakashi. And Naruto had never cowered from what Ibiki taught him. Ibiki had wondered more than once if Naruto even knew what was happening to him and his mind, but he couldn't bring himself to actually find out. The boy was frighteningly good as being two different people; frighteningly good at being Naruto - six year old child and Naruto - Senkensha.

The door to the observation room opened and Naruto closed it gently behind him. He huffed and rolled his eyes.

At least Hari was talking to him again; though hearing Hari curse very bad words at Ibiki always made him uncomfortable. "Ibiki-san," Naruto rubbed a hand over his face, "I got everything you wanted. May I clean up and go?"

"You're dismissed, Senkensha."

"Thank you," Naruto sighed and headed for the door.

"Stop." A cold voice from the edge of the room stopped Naruto and the boy turned to look at the impressively built blond man. "Ibiki-san, introduce me."

Naruto looked to Ibiki, but didn't say anything. Ibiki blinked and nodded.

"Senkensha, this is Yamanaka Inoichi. Inoichi-san, Senkensha."

"Not good enough," Inoichi growled. Naruto thought it was a pretty good growl even if it couldn't hold a candle to Ibiki when the bald man was angry. "I want to know Senkensha's name."

Naruto cocked his head to the side. Technically he wasn't a part of the department that Ibiki worked for so there was really no need for him to have a code name. He found it easier to separate himself from what he'd seen in the interrogation rooms with a code name, though. He'd let Kakashi and Ibiki call him 'Senkensha' because the dead people called him that too and it was easy enough to remember.

"Err," Naruto kicked at the floor bashfully. He didn't want Ibiki's friend to start ignoring him if he told him who he was. "Ibiki-san?"

He wasn't asking for permission to take his mask off, but he did want to know what Ibiki thought about his revealing himself.

"It's up to you, Senkensha." Ibiki shrugged one massive shoulder, "I would trust him though."

Inoichi's pupil-less eyes switched focus from the boy to Ibiki and back again. He was pleased to know that Ibiki still trusted him, but wary about the child. He could tell that it was up to 'Senkensha' to reveal himself and not up to Ibiki and he really, _really_ wanted to know who the kid was.

"Senkensha," Inoichi bowed his head, taking the first step, "I am Yamanaka Inoichi. I was the head of this department before Ibiki took over for me last year."

Naruto bit his lip and shuffled towards Ibiki, grabbing onto a fold of his pants for moral support. As long as Ibiki didn't leave him alone, he would be okay. At this point he was used to the dead, for the most part; it was the living that scared him now.

Reaching up with one hand, Naruto pulled the black half-mask down to his neck, "Uzumaki Naruto," He murmured, "Ibiki-ji-san has been helping me."

Inoichi refused to let his shock show on his face or in his eyes, "How has Ibiki-san been helping you, Naruto-kun?"

"I see-- things. And I was really scared of them for a long time, but Ibiki-ji-san helped me because even though I could see them and hear them, I couldn't touch them and they couldn't touch me so they couldn't really hurt me and so when--"

Ibiki covered Naruto's mouth with his hand. Naruto looked up at him, irritated. Ibiki smiled his not-mean smile, "You're running off at the mouth again, Naruto-kun."

Naruto sighed and nodded. Ibiki took his hand away and Naruto took a deep breath, counted to five in his head then let it out then took another deep breath, "Okay, so I see dead people and I can hear them. And Ibiki-ji-san wants to help me be shinobi because I wanna be shinobi but I couldn't be afraid of all the dead people that I can see. So he's helping me get over that." Naruto shook his head, his hand still clutching to Ibiki's pants, "Hari-chan doesn't like it and I haven't found any post-its on my pillow for a long time, so I think that he's trying to tell me that I'm not s'ppose to not be 'ffected by seeing ghosts."

Inoichi stared at him. Blinked. Blinked again. Blinked a third time, shook his head and his lips twisted up into a morbid smile. He couldn't believe that something so horrible was happening to a child because he wanted to be a shinobi and he was willing to go through such hard training so that he wasn't scared anymore.

"Naruto-kun," And it was a surprise that Ibiki seemed relatively at ease with Naruto holding on to his pants for moral support and how he seemed even more at ease with how Naruto called him uncle. "It's a pleasure to meet you."

He couldn't help but believe the boy too. After all, who knew what having the Kyuubi sealed inside did to a person. It was entirely possible that Naruto could see wandering dead. Idly he wondered if he had any dead, but decided he didn't really want to know.

Naruto looked him up and down. It wasn't that he didn't like the blond man, but there was something about him that Hari didn't like. Hari muttered something about brains and transmitting thoughts and Naruto didn't have a clue as to what that meant, but he understood that Hari was wary of Inoichi.

"You're bein' 'spicious nice," Naruto commented lightly.

Inoichi felt something brush over his mind so he turned his eyes from Naruto back to Ibiki. He didn't want to get accidentally drawn into the mind of the person who was holding back the Kyuubi.

Before he could say anything to Naruto's accusation, he felt something push at his mind again. It made him more cautious and he bit back a sigh, "I've never met you before, Naruto-kun, why wouldn't I be nice to you?"

"--Uhm, 'cause no one is?" Naruto asked like he thought Inoichi was asking a stupid question.

"What about Ibiki-san? Isn't he nice?"

Naruto paused and looked up at Ibiki then back at Inoichi. "Ibiki-ji-san isn't nice." He said flatly. He knew that Ibiki wasn't a nice man, and he didn't particularly _like_ Ibiki. But he did trust that Ibiki only had the best in mind for him. Hari didn't like Ibiki either, but Naruto was far too stubborn to let that deter him from calling Ibiki 'ji-san' to see how far he could push the bald man.

Inoichi didn't look at him in the eyes, "Nobody else is nice to you?"

"Well-- Jiji is nice, but he's gotta be nice 'cause he's Hokage. But Kaka-nii and Obi-nii are nice, I guess," Naruto pondered, leaning against Ibiki's knee. Just because he didn't like Ibiki (or hate him - he was kinda undecided about how he felt about the large man) didn't mean he didn't trust him.

"Kaka-nii?" Inoichi cocked his head to the side, "As in, Hatake Kakashi?"

"Yeah," Naruto mused, "Nii-chan and his tadpoles."

There really wasn't much Inoichi could say to finding out that Hatake Kakashi had 'tadpoles'. He didn't even know what Naruto meant about the tadpoles, so he waved the comment away.

"Is there no one else that's nice to you?" Inoichi felt a little bad, finding out that Naruto couldn't reel off a dozen names of people who were nice to him.

"Well, maybe Teuchi-ji-san and Ayame-nee-san," Naruto let go of Ibiki's pants and scratched his jaw line. He wasn't sure if he could count them because he was a patron of their restaurant and he had noticed that they were exceedingly polite to everyone that ate there. "Oh! And Hari-chan!" He looked up at the tall blond man with a wide grin.

Ibiki made _another_ mental note to talk to Naruto and Kakashi about 'Hari' because he knew that the boy was referring to the Kyuubi but he had yet to hear anything from Naruto about the Kyuubi telling him things he would think a demon would actually tell the child.

"I see," Inoichi murmured quietly. He didn't dare meet Naruto's eyes when he felt that presence in his mind again. Well, not _in_ his mind, but at the edges, as though warning him not to get any closer to the child.

"Ibiki-ji-san?" Naruto looked over to Ibiki, "I can go now, yah?"

"Sure, Kid," Ibiki reached down and pulled Naruto's mask back up over his face, "You can go if you want." He gave Naruto a little push towards the door and Naruto happily skipped out, wondering what he was going to do for the rest of the day. Kakashi was on a mission, so he wasn't available and he really wasn't in the mood to visit Jiji.

Passing by one of the offices, he grinned and stopped to knock on the door. He scurried around the corner and peeked out to watch.

An angry woman with blue hair slammed the door open and stomped out into the hall. She looked up and down it and Naruto ducked back so that she couldn't see him.

A hand clamped down on his shoulder and he looked up at the woman with a winning smile, that she couldn't see through his mask anyway, and blinked innocently at her.

"Senkensha-sama--" Her voice rose in warning and Naruto laughed.

"Hi, Anko-nee-san!"

Her cheeks puff out and she rolls her eyes, letting her breath out with a little noise. "What'cha doing, Senkensha-sama?"

Naruto was always confused by how Anko said his code name, but Hari told him that sometimes the religious or superstitious tended to put Seers on pedestals. Naruto didn't know what a pedestal was, but he didn't like it. "Just playing. Ibiki-san said that I was good to go, so I'm gone!"

"I see. Are you going to be okay getting home?" She asked in a strange voice and Naruto bowed his head. He didn't like how she always hovered over him, but there wasn't much he could do about that. She was the only person other than Ibiki - and Inoichi now - that knew he was working with the department. Not that she knew who he was. Only Ibiki and Inoichi knew that information.

"I'll be fine, Anko-nee-san," He patted her hand and Anko smiled down at him.

He was such a cute little kid. And powerful. And strange. And she didn't really want to get on his bad side, because he could talk to the dead. Senkensha was someone that she thought should be working at a temple or something; not with Ibiki, questioning dead prisoners.

It was a mystery as to how he got the dead to talk anyway, seeing as she'd thought that the dead could go anywhere and do anything they wanted without barriers in their way.

But maybe Senkensha's powers included detaining the dead.

That was a scary possibility. She shoved down the thought that she wanted him dead before she died. She certainly didn't want him questioning her or stopping her from seeing her ancestors or something like that.

She hoped that her reverence to him in life would aid her in her death.

"Alright," She paused, "Are you seeing Kakashi-san when he gets back tonight?"

"Nah," Naruto shook his head. He never much liked to see Kakashi when he got home from a mission. He liked to see Kakashi, just not with new dead. Kakashi had taken to visiting the Memorial Stone after missions to tell the dead to stay there so they didn't frighten Naruto. Naruto was thankful for Kakashi's foresight even if some of his dead didn't listen.

"Oh, hey," Anko smiled, "Before you go, did I overhear that you weren't getting any post-its lately?"

Naruto ducked his head, "Yeah. Hari-chan doesn't like me working with Ibiki," He looked up then, "But he's started talkin' with me again, so I guess it'll just be a bit more 'fore he gives me post-its again."

"Well, until you get back into the good graces of Hari-chan," She reached into a pocket in her beige trench coat and pulled out a small package, "Here you go."

Naruto took the present and ripped open the paper. It had been on his birthday that Kakashi had taught him that children ripped present paper. He'd also learned then that ripping paper was _fun_.

"Thank you!" Naruto leaped at Anko and wrapped her waist in a tight hug.

The hug was the least he could do after she'd given him a stack of rainbow colored mini-post-its.

****To be Continued****


	6. Chapter 6

**A/N: **I seem to be drifting from the post-its to the dead people thing. I just couldn't let this part go though, so hopefully next chapter will have more post-its. After all, it's academy time, isn't it :D

-A special mention for Romantiscue and LadyWinterFic! Thank you, and I love you people!

**Chapter Summary:** It's the end of Naruto's training and one singular event is his graduation exam.

*****xxxXXXxxx*****

Naruto woke up with someone poking his shoulder. He whacked the hand away, but sat up, rubbing sleep from his eyes. "Nii-chan?"

"Ibiki-san has a job for you, Senkensha." Kakashi held out his hand with a small white and orange mask.

Naruto took the newly made mask with its barely dry paint on it and bit his lip as he sighed, "I thought I had another month before I was introduced to the rest of the department."

"Something has come up."

Naruto quickly shimmied out of bed and dressed in his dark blue and black clothing, wrapping his grey cloak around his shoulders and a black bandana around his brilliant hair. He settled the new mask over his face and regular half mask and held his hand out to Kakashi to take.

Kakashi wrapped his fingers around the seven-year-old's tiny hand and shunshined away from the boy's apartment, pulling Naruto with him.

Ibiki was waiting for them outside of a set of large gates. The gates weren't as large as the Konoha main gates, but they weren't small ones either. Naruto cocked his head to the side and Ibiki stared down at him.

"Senkensha."

"Ibiki-san." He wasn't 'Naruto' anymore, not while he wore his mask, so he couldn't call Ibiki 'ji-san'. The other masked men and women watched in fascination as the child patted Ibiki's knee without any visible fear. "I can already hear them screaming."

"Yes. I had something else planned for your graduation exam, but this will prove to be much harder."

Whatever 'graduation exam' Morino Ibiki was giving the child, no one else in ANBU wanted anything to do with it. Having to walk through the streets and see the bodies was enough for them to blanch and want to leave; having a child do the same was just sadistic.

"I'm ready, Ibiki-san."

And then the boy adjusted his mask, which was different from ANBU masks only because the markings were in a burnt orange color instead of red, as well as not depicting an animal. His mask induced much curiosity in the gathered black ops operatives; Naruto didn't seem to notice the lightening fast signing that indicated typical ANBU twittering as he headed to the doors. He waited for Sharingan no Kakashi to open the gates and then stepped through.

Naruto stared at the dead. The men stared back. The women and children were too busy screaming and crying to notice that he'd seen them, that his shadowed eyes tracked their movements.

One of the dead men floated towards him. Naruto stood his ground. He had nothing to fear from these people, they couldn't hurt him. He'd learned that lesson well from Ibiki.

"_You can see us._" The man stated and Naruto nodded.

"Ibiki-san would like to know who did this." Naruto blinked and then said, "I'd like to know how to help you."

"_You can't help us. We're dead._" The man scowled, "_I am Uchiha Fugaku._"

"Senkensha," Naruto told Fugaku his code name. His code name had been chosen by the dead, for the dead, and the living used it only when he was using his ability. He looked over his shoulder and gestured for Ibiki and Kakashi to come closer to him. "Uchiha Fugaku, Ibiki-san," He nodded to the ghost and Ibiki didn't even try to pretend that he could see the man.

"Uchiha-san," Ibiki made sure to breathe calmly, hiding his pride in Naruto for managing to find the dead Clan leader in a matter of moments. He'd seen Naruto use his ability several times and each time he used Naruto as a medium, helping him overcome his fear of the dead, he addressed Naruto as though he were the dead person he was talking to. Naruto had never told him if his actions angered the dead or not, so he had continued to address Naruto whenever speaking through him to the ghosts, "Who did this?"

"_Morino Ibiki,_" Fugaku whispered with a sneer. Naruto copied his tone of voice exactly, "_My son, Sasuke. Is he alive?_"

"Yes, Uchiha-san, he is alive. Sasuke-kun was taken to the hospital. He is in a catatonic state."

Fugaku's whole body seemed to sag in relief, "_Thank the gods._" The Uchiha turned his eyes from Ibiki to Naruto, "_I wasn't aware that Konoha had someone who could do what you do._"

"I'm special," Naruto smiled under his mask. It was getting easier to ignore the screaming in the background, "Ibiki-san still wishes to know who killed you."

"_Uchiha--_" Fugaku stopped. His head bowed and he his shoulders lifted as though he'd taken a deep breath of air he didn't need, "_Uchiha Itachi._"

Ibiki's eyes narrowed and his lips twisted. "Uchiha Itachi," he murmured to himself. "He is thirteen."

"_He had help. He first killed Uchiha Shisui to gain the Mangekyō Sharingan, and then he came last night with a man in an orange swirled mask and they killed us all._"

Naruto tore his eyes from Fugaku and saw a small child, smaller than himself, standing in a corner, crying silently. He looked to Ibiki and Ibiki waved him off. He had the information that he needed from the Uchiha patriarch.

Besides, the ghosts weren't going anywhere. If he wanted to ask more questions it would be easy enough to bring Naruto back to the compound.

One grey eye watched Naruto closely as the boy wandered to a corner and crouched down, seemingly whispering to nothing. From the apparent size of the ghost Naruto was talking to, it was a young child. Naruto's hand reached out and ruffled nothing and then he smiled and watched nothing run off.

Kakashi was more than a little wary of Naruto conversing so blatantly with the dead. He knew that it looked like Naruto was crazy.

A hand came down on his shoulder and he looked over to see the white and red mask of Ookami beside him.

"What is the child-- Senkensha-san, doing?" The woman murmured her question, using Naruto's code name that she must have overheard Ibiki address Naruto as.

"Comforting the dead," Kakashi murmured back.

Ookami's hand on his shoulder tightened in shock and she stared at the boy who was moving around the first few buildings in the compound, talking and whispering. She'd never seen a person who could hear the dead. It was a gift that must have been given by the Gods.

She wondered what about Senkensha was special enough that the Gods themselves had gifted him with the ability, and what was so special about Konoha that they had been given Senkensha.

"Kakashi-san?" Anko appeared beside Sharingan no Kakashi and Ookami, "Senkensha-sama is talking with the dead?"

"I think he's starting with the children," Kakashi murmured over his shoulder to her. Ookami eyed Anko with something akin to shock in her shadowed eyes.

Anko was not a respectful person so hearing her referring to someone as 'sama' was surprising.

Then again, considering who she was talking about, Ookami figured that it wouldn't hurt to be respectful of a person that could talk to the dead.

Naruto made his rounds of the Uchiha complex, talking to several of the Uchiha's, comforting them and letting Hari help him release them. It was a new talent that he'd gained from his friend, being able to release the dead.

He liked to see the relief on their faces before they faded from his view.

Heading back to Kakashi, Naruto steadied himself and gently touched Kakashi's sleeve.

"Kakashi-san?"

"Hai, Senkensha-sama?" Naruto frowned under his masks at the title that Kakashi had given him. He didn't like it when Kakashi called him 'sama'. Brothers weren't supposed to do that.

"Uchiha-san's son, Sasuke," Naruto paused, "He's at the hospital, yeah?"

"Yes, he is."

"Can I visit him?" Naruto bit his lip and Hari gave him a tight mental hug. Hari liked it when he was nice. Hari like it when he was polite too, but Naruto was used to the gentle cuffs to the side of the mind when he wasn't polite.

Naruto absently wondered if having Hari was like having a parent.

"Of course," Kakashi crouched down and Naruto clambered up into his arms, "Are you ready to go?"

"Yep. I released the ones that wanted to leave immediately and talked to the others. Fugaku-san wants to hang around for a while, so he's following Ibiki-san around." Naruto cocked his head to the side, "Do you think I should tell him that I'm going to visit his son?"

"Ibiki-san will be talking to Sasuke later when he wakes up and Fugaku-san can see him then," Kakashi told him lightly, praying that Naruto didn't invite the ghost along with him. He really didn't feel like being haunted by Uchiha Fugaku for even a short period of time.

Naruto didn't remove either of his masks when they appeared at the hospital, knowing that his job as Senkensha wasn't complete yet.

He hated the hospital but Kakashi knew that so the twenty year old had expected the tightening of Naruto's arms around his neck.

"There's a girl," Naruto told him, looking at the girl - woman, really - and the Uchiha child lying in the bed who stared blankly at the ceiling.

"Are you going to talk to her?" Kakashi was proud that Naruto had gotten more confident about his abilities even if he cursed Ibiki every day for what he'd put the kid through.

"She's real sad," Naruto shook his head, "She keeps saying that Kaa-san won't leave him."

Kakashi nodded in understanding. He wasn't really surprised to find out that it was Uchiha Mikoto who had followed her son to the hospital. Mothers were notoriously protective, Uchiha mothers even more so than regular ones for reasons unknown outside of the clan. Not even Kakashi knew and he was the closest to being an Uchiha while still not being Uchiha due to his-- due to Obito's eye.

Naruto shifted in Kakashi's arms and the silver haired man let the boy down, watching as he cautiously made his way to the bed that Uchiha Sasuke lay on. He watched with some sadness in his eyes - both of them - as Naruto took Sasuke's hand and petted it. Naruto whispered something to the boy, petted his hand again and then backed away.

Several days later, Hari woke Naruto up, gently calling his name. Naruto sat up and blinked sleepily. Ibiki had repeatedly called for Naruto to talk with the remaining ghosts in the Uchiha district since the massacre of the clan. Kakashi was usually his guide and ferrier, but several times one of the other ANBU would take up the task of shunshining Naruto wherever it was that Ibiki wanted him.

Naruto asked why Hari had woke him up and Hari directed his gaze to the window. A masked ANBU was crouched in on the window sill.

"Tori-san?"

Anko pulled her rooster mask to the side, "Senkensha-sama, Uchiha Sasuke has regained consciousness. Ibiki-sama thought you would like to know."

It had been only two months ago that Anko had learned of Senkensha's real name and, surprisingly, it hadn't shocked her that the jinchuuriki of the Kyuubi could see the dead. After all, who knew what being jinchuuriki did to someone's perception of reality.

"Thank you Tori-san," Naruto scrambled out of bed and threw on his dark clothing, tying his mask around his face and hair before grabbing his faux-ANBU mask and lifting his hands up to Anko, "Shunshin?" He smiled up at her and it took most of her self control to not laugh at him.

Oh, the boy was well known - in his small circle of adult friends - for having a serious obsession with three things: the color orange (among other blinding hues of the rainbow), post-its, and the shunshin.

So instead of turning her nose up at the hopeful little boy she reached down and picked him up. She couldn't really refuse him anything anyway, not if she wanted to have a peaceful after-life experience.

Naruto suppressed a giggle at the feeling of the shunshin. It always made him giggly, but Hari had warned him again and again that ANBU didn't giggle. And since Naruto was now actually ANBU - which was _completely awesome_ - he couldn't giggle either. At least, not while he wore his white and orange mask.

Anko let him drop carefully to land on his feet and slid into the shadows. Probably hanging around to report anything of interest to Ibiki, Naruto figured. He turned to Sasuke's bed and pushed all thoughts of Anko out of his mind. He had other things to think about right now.

Like the fact that he was a classmate of Sasuke's. Well, granted, he was actually only in two of the classes offered at the Academy since he wasn't in the romaji, the ninjutsu or the chakra classes with the boy, only the history and weapons classes. Sasuke was better at weapons than most so they both had the advanced class while Naruto was average in the history department so they saw each other there as well. Naruto was in the advanced romaji, ninjutsu, and chakra classes while Sasuke was in the beginner's romaji class and the regular ninjutsu and chakra classes.

But they were still classmates and fellow shinobi.

"Sasuke-san," Naruto stepped up to the bed, not really ignoring the woman who was still with him, or Uchiha-san, who had joined her, "I'm Senkensha."

Sasuke didn't say anything. He did look up from his hands, which he had been staring at, and blinked at Naruto. Naruto knew that he was too sad about his family to wonder about a child wearing an ANBU mask. Naruto figured Sasuke had seen a lot of ANBU masks since he'd woken up.

"_Senkensha,_" Uchiha-san spoke up, "_Thank you for coming._"

Naruto glanced at Sasuke's dad. He wasn't sure if he should answer or not, what with Sasuke there too. Hari told him that Sasuke would want to know that his parents were watching over him though, so Naruto finally bowed his head a bit at the dead man and decided to speak, "You're welcome, Uchiha-san."

Sasuke's face changed; his brow furrowing. He didn't want to be distracted from his grief, but the boy in front of him was talking to something - maybe someone - that wasn't there. He wondered if the boy was crazy then dismissed the thought. The boy was ANBU, like his brother, and ANBU weren't crazy.

But maybe they were because his brother had-- His brother had killed his entire family.

Then made him watch.

"_Mikoto, this is the boy I was telling you about._" Uchiha said to the woman and the woman looked at him with an expression of hope on her face.

"_Can you tell Sasuke-kun that we're watching over him? That we won't leave him alone?_"

Naruto nodded. He looked at his classmate, "I can see people who are dead," He told the older boy gently, heeding Hari's advice to go slowing into the conversation, "There are two people here who would like me to tell you some things."

"W-who?" Sasuke croaked out. He hadn't spoken since he'd screamed himself into unconsciousness when his brother had tortured his mind and he found that it hurt to speak, his throat felt like it was on fire. It hurt worse now to speak than after completing the beginner's Katon jutsu that his family was famed for.

"Uchiha Fugaku and Uchiha Mikoto," Naruto whispered and Sasuke blanched impressively fast, the blood leaving his face and his hands shaking. "They want me to tell you that they're watching over you; that they won't leave you."

"Kaa-san? Tou-san?" Sasuke's eyes were big and dark and shining with unshed tears. Naruto wanted to look away to give the eight year old some privacy so he shifted his gaze back to Sasuke's parents. "Senkensha-sama?" Sasuke stuttered out, "Are-- are they here? Now?"

"Yes," Naruto said, "Mikoto-san wants you to know that she loves you. She won't ever leave you. Fugaku-san is proud of you. He always has been. He heard what Itachi told you and he wants you to forget it. He wants you to live and be happy. He doesn't want to see the last of his family, his precious son, die for a cause no one but the dead will care about."

"But!" Sasuke lunged to the end of the bed, getting closer to where he thought Naruto was looking, where he thought his dead parents were standing. He couldn't help but believe Naruto was actually talking to his parents because he'd told no one that Itachi had spoken to him before trapping him with his strange sharingan, "I care! I can't let him get away with _killing_ you! Tou-san!"

"No," Naruto repeated Fugaku's words exactly, like he did for Ibiki, "I won't have the last of my family, my _only_ son dying for revenge." Sasuke looked over to him and Naruto raised a hand, indicating that Fugaku wasn't finished speaking yet, "Sasuke-kun, I love you. I always have and I'm sorry for seemingly putting Itachi first. What Itachi did was reprehensible. But he must have loved you the most. He left you alive."

Sasuke stared at Naruto in horror. "Tou-san?"

Naruto gave the boy a hurt smile even though he couldn't see it, "I'm sorry for your loss, Sasuke-san. If you ever want to speak with your parents, while they are still hovering in this plane of existence, ask for me and I will try to come as soon as possible." Naruto shook his head, "Not many people know of me outside of ANBU and those who do, don't particularly like to talk with their dead so my talents are rarely requested."

As he turned to leave, Sasuke reached out and grasped him by the sleeve of his shirt, "Senkensha-sama?" Naruto looked over his shoulder at the boy and Sasuke pursed his lips before exhaling sharply, "Thank you."

"You're welcome," Naruto told him in a soft voice and went to the shadows where Anko was. She picked him up and shunshined away leaving with only the tiniest whiff of chakra in the air to speak of her passing.

Naruto didn't even have the presence of mind to remove his porcelain mask before falling into bed, asleep before his head hit the pillow. Anko smiled under her own mask and efficiently stripped the boy down to his boxers before tucking him in and before she left his tiny, _clean_ apartment, she set a blood red, heart-shaped stack of post-its on his bedside table.

****To be Continued****


	7. Chapter 7

**A/N**: Long wait, I know. But I warned you guys on my profile that I am usually a slow writer x.x;

**Chapter Summary**: School is in session and Naruto thinks that Ibiki-ji-san trained him in far more than desensitization because it's so easy now.

*****xxxXXXxxx*****

School was so boring! Naruto already knew most of what Iruka-sensei was telling him, having heard it all from Hari already. But Jiji wanted him to go to all the classes that he'd been signed up for, so here he was, sitting the back of the weapons class, writing down notes - only because Hari insisted that he take notes - in romaji so that no one else could copy him.

Naruto looked around the classroom, noting that Sasuke was sitting by himself, diligently writing down his own notes. Naruto was sitting in the back of the classroom, overlooking everyone else because Hari said that it was best to have the upper ground. Naruto didn't know what that meant, but Hari said that he'd understand later on.

One thing that he did know was that he didn't really want anyone, especially the other children, to know that he was Senkensha. Not that anyone in the classroom knew about Senkensha except for Sasuke, but still. It would feel awkward and weird if someone his age knew.

He didn't like awkward and weird.

"Naruto!" Umino Iruka, Naruto's kinda awesome teacher, called his name out, "Name three major arteries in the body."

"Err, the aorta, external carotid, and femoral arteries," Naruto blinked, shocked that he'd actually been called on to answer a question. This was the first time that he'd been asked a question and he wanted to get it right, "The aorta is located in the heart accessible between the fifth and sixth ribs, the external carotid artery is located in the neck with the easiest access under the jaw bone, and the femoral artery is in the thigh where one of the easier places to access it is under the hip joint close to the groin."

Iruka looked at him with faint surprise in his eyes but turned back to his lecture with little fanfare. Hari idly mentioned that his teacher must not have expected Naruto to have an answer or to be able to such a comprehensive explanation. Naruto snorted under his breath and immediately plastered on the most innocent look he had when Iruka looked at him again.

He didn't want to get in trouble.

At least, if Iruka wanted to know if he was paying attention and checked by asking questions, Naruto was totally ready to show off his knowledge.

When class ended at sixteen hundred hours, four o'clock for civilians, Naruto bounced up to the desk and slapped a piece of paper with a peach colored post-it on it onto Iruka's desk with Jiji's written permission for him to go on the field trip that the class was going on next Wednesday.

Iruka called out to him as he left the room, but he didn't hear whatever it was that Iruka wanted to say because he was far too interested in getting home. Kakashi was supposed to have come back from his mission earlier that day so Naruto was hoping that he'd get to play a little with the man he considered his older brother.

When he got home, Hari warned him that someone was in his apartment. Naruto shrugged not at all worried because if it was someone dangerous, Hari would tell him and went inside his place like he always did, slamming the door open and bouncing into the small flat. He paused when he saw that it was ANBU Tori.

But it wasn't Anko, who had been Tori only the day before.

"Who are you?" He asked suspiciously, letting Hari have access to his eyes so that Hari could scan the ANBU's mind. That was a new thing, Hari being able to actually get into someone else's mind without them knowing. Naruto knew that Hari had tried it before and it had only been eighteen months ago that Hari _hadn't_ be able to do it.

Hari had said that it had something to do with how _unsullied_ his eyes had been back then. Naruto didn't know what unsullied was, but he had a mental post-it to ask Kakashi about the word when he remembered.

"I am Tori." The stranger said and Naruto shook his head.

"No, I know Tori-san and you aren't Tori-san."

The stranger in Tori's mask cocked his head to the side and blinked slowly at him. "Do you, now?" He asked in a strangely flat voice and Naruto backed up a step.

"If you hurt me, Nii-chan and Obi-nii will kill you," Naruto warned. His feet separated and his body dropped slightly into a ready position that Ibiki had taught him while under his training and he eyeballed the stranger intensely.

The stranger shook his head and stepped back as well, "I'm not here to hurt you, Naruto-kun," He said. He paused for a moment and then lifted a hand to Anko's mask and tipped it back on his head.

Naruto thought he looked a lot like Inoichi-san.

"What do you want?" No one in ANBU lifted their mask, not unless Jiji asked them too.

"I-" He was about to continue when Kakashi swung himself thought the window and crouched in between Naruto and the man.

Kakashi wasn't facing Tori and didn't acknowledge him at all as he spoke to Naruto, "Hey Kiddo," Kakashi reached out and ruffled Naruto's hair, "What's with the stance?" He gestured to how Naruto was standing and Naruto let himself flow smoothly out of his taijutsu stance and into his more regular half-slouch that he'd copied from Kakashi and that Jiji absolutely abhorred, but never mentioned.

Naruto was pretty pleased that Hari was so protective of him. And that he was so good at reading people.

"Did something happen to Tori-san?" He asked Kakashi, trying to not seem crazy or paranoid. With a frown, Kakashi sniffed under his mask. Naruto wondered if Kakashi was catching a cold.

"Not that I know of. What's wrong?"

"Nothing," Naruto peeked out around Kakashi at the stranger who looked like Inoichi-san and then turned his eyes back to Kakashi, "Are we gonna play?"

"'Going to'," Kakashi corrected absently, "And yes, we're going to play today." His visible eyebrow rose and his Naruto could see his jaw move underneath his cloth mask as he spoke, "Unless you have something else to do?"

"Nope!" Naruto launched himself into Kakashi's arms and tried as hard as he could to ignore the fake Tori that Kakashi didn't seem to see and that followed them to the training area next to the Memorial Stone.

A murmur from Hari told him that the fake Tori wasn't dead, which sort of confused Naruto because if Kakashi could see the stranger, why didn't he react to him? And if he couldn't see the stranger then the fake Tori had to be dead, right?

Hari said no and told him that it might be important that he tell Kakashi about the stranger in Anko's mask.

Naruto wasn't sure that he wanted to talk to Kakashi about an invisible person who'd stolen Anko-ba-chan's mask. He had a strange feeling that it wouldn't be a good idea for him to mention it just yet.

So he didn't. Maybe he would later.

Kakashi quick-moved them to the memorial stone park (Naruto called it a park, and always would, not matter what his Nii-san said about it being a 'training area'. Training areas had people that trained in them, not staying empty like the park did.)

They played for a while, running and chasing and tree climbing. It was hours before Naruto finally collapsed in the grass and stared at the darkening sky, half exhausted.

"Naruto?" Kakashi raised an eyebrow at the almost-moping boy. Naruto flopped over onto his back and stared back up at the closest thing he had to a big brother.

"Nii-chan, I have never meet anyone so- so-" Naruto searched for a word to describe Sasuke's fanatic requests to speak with him. Hari provided the word he was looking for, "_-obsessed_ before!" Kakashi smoothly sat on the grass beside the boy, gesturing for him to go on. "I mean, yeah, I can talk for his parents, but, you know, I sorta got a life myself, yeah?"

"This is about Sasuke-kun?" Kakashi asked with amusement coloring his voice as he indicated Naruto's anger and dismay. Naruto nodded, sitting up and brushing loose grass from his hair.

"Totally. I can't go two days without having Tori-san or Inoichi-san or Ibiki-ji passing along a message that Sasuke-teme wants to talk to his parents." Naruto shook his head, "Hell, even Mikoto-san and Fugaku-san are getting, well," Naruto grimaced, "not annoyed, really; but _tired_ of me coming and going in their house!"

"Naruto-kun, he did just lose his entire family, everyone he knew. He grew up in a Uchiha neighborhood with every house around his for blocks boasting of only Uchiha's. Now they're all dead. It's not surprising that he wants to now that at least his parents haven't left him, even if they're dead."

"Kaka-nii," Naruto eyeballed him in a seriously manner, "It's been two months. I'm 'bout ready to just tell him who I am to give Tori and everyone a break from passing me the dumb messages." He shrugged absently then, "At least they write the notes on post-its."

Kakashi ruffled Naruto's messy, unbrushed hair, "It's up to you, Naruto-kun, whether you tell him or not. This isn't our secret, but yours." Naruto sighed again and crawled into Kakashi's lap. Kakashi rubbed his neck and arms, "Other than Sasuke demanding a lot of your time, how is everything else going?"

"Well, I have a lot of free time now. Ibiki-ji don't ask for me no more. I think Jiji said something about me to him." Naruto fiddled with Kakashi's vest, "I went in a coupla day's 'go. One of the dead asked if I was the one that graduated." Naruto got an indignant look on his face, "He didn't even recognize me! I mean, I've been gone a long time if they don't recognize me!"

Kakashi hummed, "Really?" He hadn't known that Naruto was still going by the T&I Department. He wondered what that said about Naruto's state of mind, as well as his state of being. Surely Naruto would prefer to be around friends his own age that didn't have to go wash blood off their hands before ruffling his hair or change their clothes before picking him up.

"Yeah. You know, I wear my Kaka-nii mask when I go there. No one glares at me." Naruto fingered the bunched up mask under his chin. It was stretchy and elastic, like the original one Kakashi had given him the second time Naruto had gone to meet with Ibiki.

Kakashi petted his hair and Naruto nuzzled the hand. He rather enjoyed the physical attention that Kakashi gave him. Very few, as in _two,_ other people ever touched him nicely and he sometimes craved it. The ghosts he could talk to didn't generally like him, but if he found one or two that did, they couldn't touch him.

Changing the subject, Kakashi lolled in the grass on his back, Naruto on his chest, "How's the Academy going?"

Naruto was silent for a moment, letting his nii-san's rocking body sooth him. "It's okay."

Kakashi paused and slowly sat up, arranging Naruto in his lap again, "Okay? I thought you were really excited to get in early?"

"Yeah," Naruto slumped in Kakashi's arms, "I get asked dumb questions most o' the time." He pouted for a moment and then looked up to his nii-san with wide blue eyes, "Am I supposed to be able to answer... highly con-tr-val-uted hypa-thet-ical questions?" He sounded the words out like he was repeated them and Kakashi rightly assumed that Hari - Kyuubi - was behind them. Seven year olds didn't know words like _convoluted_ and _hypothetical_.

"No, you're not," Kakashi petted Naruto's hair gently, "Are you being asked those kind of questions?"

Naruto nodded, leaning his weight into Kakashi, "Sometimes. Hari-chan tells me the questions in a way I can understand them, but it's hard to know how to answer. I get docked points for not answering fast enough too." A worried look entered Naruto's eyes and he tugged on Kakashi's vest, "I'm tryin' my best, Nii-chan, I really am, but I don't know- I'm tryin' to understand my senseis but it's really hard!"

Kakashi resolved right then to go and have a nice little chat with the senseis at the academy. Naruto was smart and very well trained, so the fact that he was having trouble with anything in the academy rang a lot of alarm bells.

Then Kakashi had to wonder if that wasn't the reason that Naruto was going back to the T&I HQ. His treatment at the HQ building probably was a lot easier to handle than anywhere else in Konoha.

That thought was a sad one, and Kakashi hugged Naruto tight.

"What'cha doin' Nii-chan?" Naruto's voice was muffled from his face being buried in Kakashi's vest and the silver haired nin loosened his grasp on the child.

"Hugging you." Kakashi rocked the boy lightly. Naruto scowled up at him, looking like he wanted to shake off the hold, but couldn't bear to have Kakashi stop touching him.

"Whatev'r," Naruto slumped in Kakashi's arms, letting himself pout a little. Hari told him to suck it up and enjoy the hug. Naruto pouted a little more, but didn't argue.

****To be Continued****


	8. Chapter 8

**A/N:** I freaking rewrote this three times! Three! Thankfully, most of what I tried the first two times can be mixed up and used later on. Also? Using my natural Canadian spelling now. If you see weird looking 'z's or more 'u's than you're used to, don't worry about it, you're just being cultured.

**Chapter Summery:** Naruto doesn't like how Jiji talks about Hari-chan. But Anko-chan is as awesome as ever!

*****xxxXXXxxx*****

"Now, Naruto-kun, I thought that we talked about Hari-san," Old Man Sarutobi looked down his nose, over his reading glasses at Naruto and Naruto squinted back up at him.

"We did," Naruto muttered, "But Hari-chan is so totally awesome." Hari-chan _was_ awesome in Naruto's mind. Hari-chan loved him and hugged him and encouraged him. Talked to him, and listened to him. It wasn't that no one else did that because Kaka-nii and Ibiki-ji and Anko-chan (she had told him that she'd wack him one if he called her 'ba-chan'. Naruto wasn't sure what she was gonna wack him with, but he didn't want that, and thus dropped the 'ba') and even Inoichi-oji listened to him when he wanted to talk, and though Sasuke always wanted to talk through him to his parents, Naruto, as Senkensha, was forming some kind of personal relationship with the other boy. It was Hari-chan that was his and all his and he didn't have to share Hari-chan with anyone.

Not that it was going well in the academy anyway. Sasuke was as douchebaggish as ever to _Naruto_. That was actually the problem that Jiji was talking about.

"I know that you think that Hari-san has the best in mind for you, Naruto-kun, but telling Sasuke who you are under the mask isn't going to help you make friends with the boy." Jiji leaned back in his chair and Naruto pouted, crossing his arms over his chest.

Trying to be contrary because he didn't like how Sarutobi was talking about his very first and very best friend, Naruto lifted his lip in a sneering curl, "Maybe I don't wanna tell Sasuke-teme to be friends with him. Maybe I'm tryin' ta think about your ANBU and make it so's they don't gotta go back and forth between me and Sasuke," Naruto huffed, "Didja thinka that, Jiji?"

The air in the room suddenly changed and Naruto's eyes widened a little. Old Man Sarutobi straightened up and his eyes flashed, "Do not take that tone with me, Naruto." His voice was stern and Naruto licked his dry lips. Old Man Sarutobi took a deep breath and then relaxed back into his chair, the tension leaving the air, "I apologize for my reaction, Naruto-kun, but you are still a child, no matter how talented you are with the dead. I am the Hokage of Konoha and I will not be spoken to in that kind of manner."

"Sorry, Jiji," Naruto slouched, actually feeling sorry for his belligerence. Jiji had done a lot for him and didn't deserve attitude like that. Not wanting to give up completely though, he opened his eyes wide and tried to squeeze out a tear or two, "I'm just worried! What if Hari-chan stops talkin' ta me again? What if he don't like me anymore 'cause I'm not listening to him?"

Jiji hummed in the back of his throat and considered Naruto's concerns. "Has he done that before, Naruto-kun? Left you alone and not spoken to you?"

"Yeah! I didn't like it _at all_! He don't like Ibiki-ji either! Well," Naruto shrugged, calming just a little, "He's better now that Ibiki-ji isn't lettin' me into the interrogation rooms, but Hari-chan still don't like him. And when Kaka-nii and Ibiki-ji started trainin' me, Hari-chan stopped talking ta me, and he stopped listening ta me and everything!" Naruto threw his arms wide and collapsed back into his chair. It still hurt that Hari-chan had pretty much abandoned him like that. Hari-chan sounded sad when he said he was sorry, again.

Naruto huffed. He knew that Hari-chan was sorry and he forgave Hari-chan, but it still hurt.

A wrinkly hand reached up and scratched at an equally wrinkly cheek and Jiji hummed again. "You mean that Hari-chan didn't want you to have contact with Ibiki-san?"

"Nah," Naruto sighed, "He said that he was tryin' to protect me." Looking up at Old Man Sarutobi, Naruto questioned, "Why would I need protectin' from Ibiki-ji? He didn't hurt me."

With a look in his eye that Naruto recognized from Kaka-nii when his elder brother told him stories about his missions, Jiji shook his head, "I am unsure, Naruto-kun." Hari-chan insisted that that look meant Kaka-nii and Jiji were lying, but Naruto didn't want to believe Hari-chan, even though he kinda did.

"Okay, Jiji," Naruto looked at his feet idly while he kicked back and forth, scuffing the carpet. He didn't like it when Kaka-nii and Jiji lied to him and he knew that Hari-chan was just looking out for him by telling when they were, but it hurt him almost as much as Hari-chan not talking to him to know that his some of his favourite people lied to his face.

"Now, you said that Hari-san agreed with you that you should tell Sasuke about who you are," Jiji brought the conversation around to what they'd been talking about in the beginning and Naruto nodded, still put out by Jiji lying to him. "Do you, or Hari-chan, have a good reason that you can tell me as to why you want to tell him?"

"Well," Naruto brightened considerably, "I wanna tell him 'cause then maybe he'll stop tellin' me I'm a dobe in classes." Naruto rolled his eyes, "Even though half my classes are higher than his!" Naruto wasn't impressed that the 'class genius' didn't have some classes with him because he was too 'advanced' for his age. Hari-chan scoffed, saying that one would think that genius meant advanced. Naruto laughed and kept talking, "And Hari-chan says that I should tell him 'cause then maybe he'll be my friend." Naruto frowned for a moment, "He says that it's good to have friends my age. I don't know about that, 'cause everyone my age is so... stupid."

Jiji smiled, but it was sad and Hari told Naruto that it was because Jiji didn't like Naruto not having friends. "I think that Hari-chan is worried about you, Naruto." Naruto was pleased that Jiji didn't have that lying look in his eyes when he said that and so was Hari-chan. "Do you think that you could be be friends with Sasuke-kun even though you talk for his parents?"

Naruto had to think about that seriously. He'd been well trained by Ibiki-ji and knew that Sasuke would see him first as a channel to his parents and that it was hard sometimes for people to see past the initial bond to make other bonds. He'd seen it enough while he'd been under Ibiki-ji's supervision.

Could Sasuke see past his ability? Maybe not now, it was still to soon. But maybe? Hari-chan agreed with Naruto and Naruto smiled, "I think he's smart enough."

A concerned look appeared on Jiji's face and he leaned forward, "Do you think it's possible that Sasuke-kun will be your friend just to keep you around so that he'll be able to talk to his parents? I don't want you hurt, Naruto-kun."

"Nah," Naruto shook the concern off, "He knows that all he's gotta do is ask ANBU to talk ta me and I go over to see him. He don't have to be my friend to do that."

A shimmer in the corner of his eye caught Naruto's attention and he turned to look at fake-Tori. Naruto knew it was fake-Tori because Jiji didn't seem to notice him. Hari-chan told him that maybe he should tell Jiji about fake-Tori and Naruto shrugged. He kind of liked the mystery.

"So you will tell Sasuke-kun who you are?" Jiji asked and Naruto turned his attention back to Old Man Sarutobi.

"Yeah," Naruto jumped to his feet and stretched. He'd been sitting for _so long_~! How Jiji could stand to sit behind that big, awesome desk for so long without going crazy, Naruto didn't know. "I can go now, Jiji?"

Jiji smiled at him and nodded, gesturing to the door, "Go on, Naruto. Say hello to Kakashi-san for me, would you?"

"Okay!" Naruto bounced out of the office gleefully, fake-Tori following along sedately. Having fake-Tori around didn't really bother Naruto anymore, it had been months since he's shown up the first time. Fake-Tori didn't even talk to him anymore, just sort of hung out with him. Hari-chan said that it should bother him, but it didn't.

Naruto was sure that if fake-Tori could touch him, he'd be more worried, but fake-Tori didn't even talk, so he wasn't worried. Hari-chan told him that he wasn't worried because of what Ibiki-ji had done to him, but Naruto had no idea what that meant because Ibiki-ji hadn't done anything to him.

"Naruto-kun!" Anko meet him at the end of the hall before the stairs and Naruto flung himself into her arms.

"Anko-chan!" He liked Anko, she was _awesome_. She was ANBU, and she had snakes! Naruto liked snakes. Hari-chan was even teaching him how to talk to them! He wasn't very good at it, but Hari-chan said it was a good exercise in patients for them both. Naruto wasn't sure what he meant by that, but figured that if Hari-chan thought it was good, he'd keep at it.

And Anko-chan's snakes liked Anko-chan too, so Naruto knew that Anko-chan was awesome because you could always tell who was a good person and who wasn't by how well their pets liked them. Naruto liked the Inuzuka family as well, though he thought Kiba was a douchebag sometimes, for that same reason.

"Naruto-chan!" Anko-chan spun him around and 'round and then let him go. Naruto walked a few steps, weaving while he laughed. He liked being spun around like that and Anko-chan knew it. "What's up, Naruto-chan?"

"Imma make friends with Sasuke-teme!" Naruto exclaimed brightly, "And then you won't hafta keep leaving me notes!"

Anko-chan laughed again and ruffled his hair, leaning down so that her face was closer to his, "You'll have ta stop callin' him teme, then, won't yah?"

Naruto rolled his eyes and nodded, "Yeah, I know. Hari-chan don't like it when I call him teme anyway." He scowled, "Sasuke's a teme anyway."

"And why would you become friends with him then, Naruto-kun?" Anko held out her hand and Naruto happily took it, walking down the stairs with his favouritest girl in the whole world, "If you think he's such a teme?"

"'Cause he's kinda awesome too," Naruto snorted, "That's why he's more dumb than anyone else. He's not what everyone is sayin' he is, yah know," Naruto looked up to Anko, "He's not the 'last Uchiha'."

Anko nodded along with him, "I know, buddy," she led him through the side doors of the Hokage Tower and out into the streets, "He's still got a brother out there. But Itachi is effectively dead to Sasuke and the Uchiha clan, as he killed them. He besmirched his honour and now he's not a Uchiha at all."

Naruto chewed on that for a moment after Hari-chan told him what 'besmirched' was. He still wasn't sure what Anko-chan meant exactly, as the Uchiha clan was dead, but if Anko-chan and Hari-chan were in agreement about there still being a clan, he supposed that he could let it go.

"Anko-chan?" Naruto switched subjects immediately, having had enough of his day taken up with talking about Sasuke and Uchihas, "You're still ANBU, right?"

"Well, last I knew, I was," Anko ruffled his hair again, "You saw me last night, didn't you?"

"Yeah, but, see," Naruto debated his question for a second, "Who was Tori-chan before you?"

Anko-chan raised an eyebrow at him and Naruto clutched tight to Anko-chan's hand. He didn't want her to let go of him, he didn't want to have made her angry with him.

"I don't know, Naruto-chan. That's kept a secret. In fact, you shouldn't even know that I'm Tori even though you have a place in ANBU yourself."

"Huh." Naruto hummed to himself while he listened to Hari-chan insist that he told someone about fake-Tori. Naruto guessed that it wasn't a bad plan to do that, seeing as Hari-chan hadn't ever lead him wrong before. But he was having so much fun trying to guess who fake-Tori was that it was hard to let go of the mystery.

Naruto wanted to keep the mystery.

But Hari-chan was insistent and finally, with a sigh of exasperation, Naruto gave in. "I been seeing someone who's not dead," Naruto pouted. He didn't really want to say this. But maybe Anko-chan would help him with the mystery, instead of taking away from him? Anko-chan was awesome after all.

"Yeah?" Anko-chan bent over him and lifted him up so that he was sitting on her shoulders. Naruto laughed gaily as she jumped onto a roof and started running towards the wall. Well. Not so much the wall as the training areas. Where the Memorial Stone was.

Naruto knew very well where the Memorial Stone was because Kaka-nii was always there when he wasn't on missions or playing with Naruto. Sometimes even playing with Naruto, Kaka-nii hung out at the Memorial Stone.

"Yeah! He's not dead, but no one else can see him neither-" Hari-chan corrected him absently, "-either!" Naruto relished in the wind on his face. It felt like Hari-chan said flying felt and it was awesome!

"He been followin' you 'round, Naruto-chan?" Anko-chan hopped off the last roof and raced through the trees, bouncing like the squirrel on crack that Kaka-nii had accused Naruto of being.

Shrieking with laughter, Naruto clung tight to Anko-chan's hair and let the woman go wild in the trees. He didn't care when leaves smacked him in the face, or twigs scrapped his cheeks, it was too much fun moving this fast for him to bother complaining about such little things.

The stop at the end was a bit sudden, and Naruto shrieked again, almost overbalancing and falling over Anko-chan's head as she waved her arms around, trying to keep herself upright. When Naruto got balanced again, he looked around, his face red with humour.

"Naruto-kun?" Kaka-nii was at the Stone, not a surprise, but what was a surprise was that fake-Tori was there too. And someone else.

"Who's that?" Naruto scrambled off of Anko-chan, not really noticing how she had to catch him at least twice to make sure that he didn't fall head first into the ground and meandered over to Kaka-nii, fisting a hand in Kaka-nii's pants.

Kaka-nii petted his head and Naruto frowned. "Who's who, Naruto-kun?" Kaka-nii smiled his funny little smile with one eye and the new person choked.

"_Kakashi? Smiling?_" He didn't look very old, fourteen or fifteen and then Naruto noticed something else.

"Are you Obi-nii?" Naruto's eyes widened and he stared. Hari-chan told him to calm down, but it was hard. Naruto hadn't ever met Obi-nii before and it was exciting. "You're wearin' Obi-nii's goggles! Hey, hey! Look!" Naruto grabbed his own goggles and held them up, "I got a set too!" Obi-nii lifted the goggles from his face and Naruto's face screwed up in thought. "Wait, why don't you got no eyes? If you're Obi-nii, you oughta have one, 'cause you gived one to Kaka-nii."

"_Maa_," The not-Obi-nii smiled, "_I'm not Obito-nii_." He fiddled with the goggles and Naruto blinked at him, trying to think of who the strange dead dude was if it wasn't Obi-nii. Hari-chan told him to be careful so Naruto made sure that he was near Kaka-nii and Anko-chan. "_I heard a lot about Kakashi from Obito-nii though. I'm surprised that he can smile_."

"You said that already!" Naruto exclaimed, "What's your name?" Naruto made a point of being rude, pointing at the weird dead boy. Well. Maybe not boy. Hari-chan said that he looked older. Naruto didn't really care, he wasn't one to go around thinking about how old people were.

A hand grasped Naruto's shoulder tightly and Kaka-nii's grey eye was wide and shocked, "Naruto-kun, who are you talking to?"

"I don't know!" Naruto huffed, crossing his arms and staring at not-Obi-nii. "He won't tell me his name."

"But don't they have to listen to you?" Anko-chan's muttered softly.

It was barely heard by Naruto though as he pointed again and demanded loudly, "Tell me your name!"

"_I am Uchiha Shisui._" Shisui-not-Obi-nii bowed his head. "_I heard from other members of the family that you could hear us_."

"Yeah, yeah. Whatcha doing 'round Kaka-nii?" Naruto wasn't happy that some weird stranger was stalking his Nii-san. He'd thought that he'd dealt with the last of the Uchiha, leaving only Fugaku-san and Mikoto-san around. To have another one pop up out of nowhere was craziness!

"_I also heard that he was close to you_."

Calming down a bit with Hari-chan's whispers that he was scaring Kaka-nii with all his shouting, Naruto made an exasperated face, "You coulda just asked any of the dead people. They'd'a told yah were to find me." He shook his finger at Shisui-not-Obi-nii, "You aren't allowed to stalk my Nii-san, okay?"

"_My apologies, Senkensha-sama. I will not 'stalk' Kakashi-san again._" Shisui bowed his head and Naruto huffed.

"Good. Now-" Before Naruto could continue with his conversation, Kaka-nii rested a hand on his shoulder and squeezed it.

"Naruto-kun, who are you talking with?" His voice sounded strained and Hari-chan muttered something about how badly shinobi did shock.

Naruto looked up at his Nii-san and smiled winningly, "His name is Shisui-"

"_I am Obito-nii-san's little brother,_" Shisui interjected and Naruto added that to his introduction.

"-Obi-nii's little brother!"

****To be Continued****


End file.
